Grunts (49 page)

“Hell, no!” Sergeant John H. Stryker wiped the sweat pouring down his strong, regular features, sprawled on his backside on the deck. “I haven’t had my hands on a gun in twenty years, and that was in basic training. I’m a
clerk
. I shift army gear and personnel. This gang of asshole kids jumped me. They totalled my jeep and they were gonna total me. I was gonna get the hell out, and then something
happened
—”

“You ran away from a brawl?” The orc commissar shuddered.

“Shit, there were dozens of the little bastards! For all I know they were carrying knives; of
course
I’m outta there! Look,” the Man’s tenor voice protested plaintively, “so far I’ve been kidnapped and dumped in the fucking
jungle
, for God’s sake, seeing things I never thought to see outside of a trip. If I don’t get back to base I’m AWOL and they’re gonna have my
ass
. And there’s a load of Tornado spares that I
got
to get shipped through.”

“Support services,” Razitshakra remarked. “Rear echelon.”

Ashnak snarled. “We have the first real proof that there’s a world where Dagurashibanipal’s marines exist! Where you can get the weapons systems we only dream about. A heroes’ world! And what do we get? We get
this
.”

Leather-winged birds gibbered and yawped over the estuary. Razitshakra unholstered a Desert Eagle automatic pistol,
thumbed back the hammer, and placed the cold metal muzzle in Stryker’s ear. “I say we waste him, General, right now. He’s useless.”

“Aw, why not—
fuck
.”

A cloaked figure with bodyguards paced up the gangplank.

Ashnak came smartly to attention and performed a parade-perfect salute. The Man chewed his large-knuckled fist, smothering a high-pitched giggle.

Razitshakra kept the muzzle of the Desert Eagle automatic pistol pointed at his head. The Man flinched each time the circle of darkness lined up on him.

“Yes, indeed,” Ashnak rumbled, “I’m attempting to ascertain that very thing myself, your Dark Magnificence, how perspicacious of you to mention it. I believe this to be a marine from Dagurashibanipal’s collection. One of my NCOs in Thyrion found it. Said it cracked up at the first sight of the enemy.”

Razitshakra muttered, “
Definitely
ideologically unsound!”

The hooded figure lifted pale hands and put the cowl back from its face. At this point Sergeant John H. Stryker of the U.S. Marine Corps understood that he really should have read the $4.95 fantasy hack-and-slay paperbacks that turned up in the mess. Or at least watched more of the videos. Thriller, beaver, and private eye don’t teach you rules for survival where orcs carry M16s. Or where women have glowing neon-orange eyes.

The air dirtied as if a cloud had passed across the dawn. Only She shone. Her gaunt face had shadows of the palest blue lining hollow cheeks and eye-sockets. A great starburst of white-blonde hair cascaded back from Her smooth forehead. Smothered in heavy black robes, fragile, She gazed down at Stryker where he sprawled on the barge’s deck.

Her voice like bells said, “Curious and interesting.”

“Yes, Dread Lord.” Ashnak pointed at the barge fleet, the grunts crewing it, and the confusion apparent on most of the vessels. “It appears to be a logistics expert, Ma’am. I thought we might see what it can do. Or we could try eating it.”

“No!” Sergeant Stryker added, as a confused afterthought, “Sir!”

The Dark Lord said, “You may accompany Me below, My Ashnak. Bring that with you.”

Ashnak saluted, gestured to the commissar, and set off down into the bowels of the Faex River barge. Under the prow cables hummed, strung up through beams and hooks to a portable generator. An acrid smell hung in the air. Ashnak moved forward to the laboratory benches.

“What have you got here, Technician?”

Behind Ashnak, the Man whimpered. He shot a glare at Razitshakra, who put her taloned hand firmly over the Man’s mouth. Blue eyes bugged, staring—so far as Ashnak could make out—at Tech-Captain Ugarit.

“Sir, General Ashnak, sir! Look at these babies!” Green spittle trailed down Ugarit’s chin. The skinny orc’s white laboratory coat pockets clinked with scalpels as he danced in place, head bobbing between Ashnak and the silent figure of the Dark Lord.

Ashnak supposed that, if you weren’t used to it, Ugarit’s habit of piercing his pointed ears with feathers and studs might be a little startling. The tall, skinny orc wiped his hands down his bloodstained coat, eyes and fangs glinting in the light of naked bulbs, giggling and saluting. As he moved aside, Ashnak saw the dissected carapace of a Bug resting on the makeshift laboratory table. Sticky fluids flowed down onto the deck.

The Man whimpered, even through Razitshakra’s muffling hand.

“Acid blood!” Ugarit enthused. “Regeneration of parts!
Tiny
brains! They’re perfect killing machines, your Dark Magnificence, perfect. Oh I do
envy
them so…”

The skinny orc dribbled again. Ashnak momentarily debated the wisdom of having moved Captain Ugarit from technical development to biological research.

“This,” the Dark Lord pointed, “this is not flesh…”

Ugarit reached a heavily gloved hand into the mess on the bench and extracted what looked to Ashnak like a steel mechanism.

“They
secrete
me-muhh-uhn-uhn-uhn—!”

Ashnak stepped forward and punched Ugarit firmly in the face. The orc’s head bounced off one of the barge’s beams. A daffy grin spread itself across his thin green features.

“They secrete
metal
,” he repeated, slightly more in control. “They replace parts of their bodies with it. O Great Mistress, I think they can grow their own weapons. I think they can grow
our
weapons, now they’ve captured some to
copy. Mistress, imagine if I could harness their growth mechanism, we could
grow our own armaments
!”

Ugarit reached back and rested fond gloved claws on the Bug’s sticky shell.

“I always
wanted
to do cybernetic research,” the skinny orc murmured dreamily. “Grafting parts. Inserting bits. This organic mechanism is so much simpler. Cyber-mech. That’s it. Cyber-mech weapons systems…”

Ashnak looked at the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord’s cowl turned in the general direction of Ashnak. She rested Her hand on Ugarit’s bowed head. The sound of Her soft voice brought small rodents scurrying from the hold, spiders crawling from the beams, and Darknesses to scurry about the orcs’ feet:

“He is most ingenious, My Ugarit, is he not? Perhaps We should let him dismantle your captive marine. We might learn much from that.”

Ashnak ignored the snivelling from the Man behind him.

“Good idea, Dread Lord,” he said brightly. “Thing’s a disgrace to the marines anyway.”

“Look,” Sergeant John H. Stryker protested, “I’ve seen a few videos, I remember how this is supposed to work! I come here, you train me, you make me into a warrior, I beat the shit out of your enemies; all that crap. Sir, I’ve
seen
those things fight. Never happen, sir.”

“Damn right,” Ashnak sniffed. “Fancy you with a garlic sauce, myself. Very tasty, Man and garlic. Dread Lord, it’s a pure waste of good meat to let the captain here have him.” He brightened. “Unless we could have what’s left over afterwards?”

Darkness hung and dripped from the underside of the barge deck, the electric bulbs spawned sepia and blue shadows, and a constant rustling of invisible homage sounded around the Dark Lord’s bare robed feet.

Stryker gabbled, “You’re the ranking officer here, right, Ma’am?”

Her narrow lips twitched up at the corners.

The Man stumbled on. “And You’ve got a conflict situation here? And a presidential election? That takes planning. I can plan! I’m shit hot, Ma’am. What I can do is make sure You and every other unit gets where they’re meant to be, when they’re meant to be there.
Really
, Ma’am.”

“It is intelligent enough to eavesdrop. Well.” The Lord of
Darkness wrapped Her thick black robes closer about Her body. The hold’s smell of spices was overlain with a thicker scent. “One
might
delay dissection, I suppose…”

“Yes, Dread Lord.” Ashnak resentfully ignored his rumbling gut.

The Heart of Evil shook back the pale hair from Her face, that seemed childlike amongst the heavy robes, and She smiled, holding out one of Her long-boned hands in front of Her and turning it from side to side in examination.

“It is strange,” She said, “to inhabit a female body, after so many aeons.”

The arcing electric bulbs in the hold illuminated Her gull-wing brows, delicate tiny ears, and shapely mouth.

“There must be many things One can do with a female body,” the Dark Lord said. Her speculative gaze lingered on General Ashnak, who came to attention and a terrified eyes-front, then passed to Biotech-Captain Ugarit, who giggled, Razitshakra (obliviously reciting cantos from the Way of the Orc to herself), and finally fixed on John H. Stryker. She smiled.

“Have that boy washed,” She ordered, “and sent to My cabin.”

“Yes, Dread Lord!” Ashnak remained with his head bowed until She had departed for Her quarters. “Commissar Razitshakra, you heard the Dark Lord. While you’re doing that, interrogate the Man carefully. You may cause it pain, but don’t damage it. Dismiss!”

Biotech-Captain Ugarit followed Ashnak back up onto the deck. Ashnak’s despairing gaze travelled across the orc marine barge fleet, still not ready to cast off and direct their prows up the River Faex—up the river, through all the townships and cities and the capitals of the Southern Kingdoms, on the last and heaviest stages of the Dark Lord’s election campaign. And only seven more days…

“Sir,” Ugarit pleaded, “may I have him, sir? Just a tiny bit, sir?”

“Well, I suppose She wouldn’t miss a toe or a finger, or one of the smaller organs,” Ashnak mused. “On the other hand, we—”

“General, what’s that?” Ugarit, his dirty white laboratory coat flapping around his ankles in the river breeze, suddenly snickered, whinnied, and pointed.

“Don’t interrupt
me
, you puking excuse for an orc ma—” Ashnak stopped, speechless. “Pits!”

A cloud of dust rose up over the bank of the River Faex. Delta mud, dry as a bone in this summer season, kicked up sky high. Following the plume down to its base led Ashnak’s eyes to a black blob, travelling at high speed towards the moored barge fleet.

“That’s an armoured vehicle.” Ashnak’s nostrils flared, failing to catch the scent of any magic. “That’s one of
our
armoured vehicles.”

Ugarit removed from his lab coat pocket a miniaturised radiocom, held it to his skinny ear, and shook it. “Sir, they can’t get it to identify, General, sir!”

Ashnak vaulted the poop deck rail, landing heavily and squarely on the lower deck. He strode to the barge rail nearest to the quay. “Perimeter guards!”

A racheting roar shook the earth and sky. The plume of dust switched direction, turning towards the river, trailing clouds of black exhaust. Juddering at its top speed of 30 mph, swaying, gun dipping and rising in a vain attempt to compensate for the terrain, a T54 Main Battle Tank swung down onto the quayside.

Before Ashnak could bellow a warning over the comlink, and with orc marines leaping into the water out of its way, the speeding tank rocketed down the bank, onto the wooden jetty in front of the barge, ground up a spray of timbers in its treads, and shuddered to a halt, its metal casing three feet from where Ashnak stood at the barge rail.

The wooden piles of the quay groaned, cracked, and sank two yards with a sudden jolt.

Ashnak surveyed the banks of the River Faex. Dockworkers fled the wooden quay as the whole length of it swayed. Orc marines who had plummeted off the side swam, in full kit, back towards their own barges. Anxious signals jammed the radio frequencies, coming from farther down the fleet.

“Get me artillery support!”

“Yessir!” Ugarit squeaked.

Ashnak leaned his horn-skinned elbow on the rail of the barge, and rested his massive-jawed chin on his hand. The steel hatch of the T54 flipped open. Ashnak raised his free hand, holding his .44 Magnum officer’s pistol.

A small figure stood up in the hull hatch of the T54 Main
Battle Tank. The wooden beams and pilings of the quay creaked, snapped, and sank another foot, tilting the tank’s nose towards the swirling black waters of the Faex. The figure ignored this. It saluted snappily and gave a joyous cry.

“Sir, General Ashnak, sir!”

Ashnak suspiciously narrowed his deep tilted eyes.

The helmeted figure, visible from the waist up, saluted again, and cried shrilly over the noise of the river birds, “Sir, General Ashnak,
sir
. Major Barashkukor reporting back for duty, sir!”

Ashnak’s you-can’t-fool-me-dickhead-I’m-a-marine expression vanished. “
What?!
”

“Sir, it is me, sir. Honest, sir!”

The orc standing in the T54’s hatch pulled off its helmet. Long, hairless ears sprang momentarily upright, then drooped in the heat. A broad grin spread itself over only-too-familiar features.

Ashnak stared.

The small orc wore the remnants of a desert camouflage jacket and one glove only. His other hand and arm seemed covered in shiny silver—no, were
made
of silver metal. And his eye…

The small orc’s right eye had been replaced by a metal socket and zoom-lens, which whirred as he focussed in on his general and flashed in the dawn sun of Port Mirandus.

Ashnak thumbed back the hammer of the pistol he held. “You sure as hell don’t look like any kind of orc to me, boy.”

The small orc cyborg’s face brightened. Both his ears perked up. “Sir, the major can explain that to the general, sir!”

“You’d damn well better be able to!”

As Ashnak drew a bead on the figure in the tank, the dock timbers groaned and gave further way. The back of the tank dropped a yard. The upper casing of the Main Battle Tank was now below Ashnak, the gun swivelling to aim straight between the large orc’s eyes.

“And don’t point that thing at me, you dumbass excuse for a marine!”