“Three—smart personal weapons! Ready to demonstrate, sir and ma’am!”
Ugarit skittered up and down the line of waiting marines in the compound, handing out poleaxes and warhammers with jutting metallic and cable additions and adjuncts.
“Fire-and-forget hand weaponry! Remember, these weapons are smarter than you are, so just swing them and let them do the rest. No, no! Let me get out of the way first!”
Squeaking, the tall corporal loped up the steps and took refuge on the snow-covered parapet beside Barashkukor and the female elf. The orc marine squad below spat on their horny hands, gripped the unfamiliar shafts of adapted polearms, and raised them.
SPLAT!
Barashkukor winced. A casual swipe from one poleaxe hacked off one marine’s arm, twisted in mid-air to block another weapon, changed trajectory one hundred and eighty degrees and smashed an orc-skull, described three separate curves in the space of milliseconds, and dragged its wielder back out of the fight by sheer momentum.
A smart warhammer drove into that patch of snow-covered earth two seconds later, rebounded, and swung again.
Half the squad dragged their visibly unwilling weapons backwards. A squat and solid orc marine giggled, swinging his poleaxe with gusto. The endspike impaled an orc corporal. She swore. The axe blade swung the squat orc in a circle, and marines leaped out of range. The poleaxe lifted in its owner’s grip, hovered a second—
“Halt!” Barashkukor bellowed shrilly.
The poleaxe twisted up and over and whistled in a short arc, severing the squat orc’s own head. The trunk collapsed. Orc blood steamed and sizzled viridian in the snow.
The orc marine squad—having carefully put down their weaponry first—slapped each other on the back and set about gathering up severed limbs and the unlucky corpses. The squad leader kicked the bleeding orc-head thoughtfully and raised his head to gaze up at the parapet.
“Permission to hold an Orcball tournament, Major, sir?”
Barashkukor looked into the upsidedown eyes of the severed head. “Not until you go off-duty, marine.”
“Oh, that’s all right, sir. It’ll keep in this weather anyway.” The Marine First Class picked up the severed orc-head by the ears and walked back to his squad, debating in an undertone with his buddy. “You don’t get such a long game when they’ve gone squishy. They’re better good and solid. Maybe we can sell tickets…”
“No—I don’t want to know.” The female elf sat down a little suddenly on the snow-covered parapet. “Orcball?”
“Sometimes it’s a raffle,” Barashkukor said helpfully. He fussed, getting the tall, slender elf to her feet, brushing the caked snow off her leather trousers. He waved at his R&D squad. “Not entirely successful, Corporal Ugarit…”
“Nossir. And fourthly,” Ugarit said, eyes darting feverishly around, “my state-of-the-art invention. Personal powered armour. It’s a motherfucker of a defence. Just let them try to take me out now! I shall demonstrate this one myself, Major.”
Barashkukor noted the way the elven reporter’s mouth hung open. Obviously impressed. He proudly puffed out his thin chest, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Watch this, ma’am.”
The doors of the Research and Development building crashed open. A team of heavily built orcs wheeled a wooden trailer out into the compound. Resting on it was what at first appeared to be a metal and glass statue of an orc, or possibly unusually full plate harness.
“Is that armour?” Perdita del Verro queried. “I don’t recognise the country of origin…”
Ugarit skipped up to the trailer, waving the other orc marines back. He scrambled up, opened panels in the metal casing, and climbed into the steel exoskeleton. The panels clicked shut.
Barashkukor called, “Corporal?”
The exoskeleton lay still. A high-pitched whine began to build. Several of the radar and satellite dishes now sprouting from the parapets began to turn. Ugarit, in the full body armour, sat up.
Metal plate and thick glass sheathed him from his skinny ears to his taloned feet. The powered armour whined, servo-mechanisms activating, put its heavy feet down on the snow-covered earth, and lurched upright. Ugarit’s face, where it was visible, was contorted with glee. His hands could be seen manipulating pressure pads in the heavy glass-and-steel gloves.
His mechanically amplified voice boomed out, “I’m invincible! I feel like a god! No one can get me now, Major, no one!”
Ugarit took one step forward.
The exoskeleton’s left foot came down on compacted snow and skidded forward. Servo-mechanisms shrieked and gyros whirred, compensating. Ugarit’s face, high up and small, could not be seen now, but a wail echoed down from the machine. The powered armour’s right leg lurched another step, came down in soft ice and lodged. The left leg jerked, attempting to pull the other free. Sparks shot from all the powered armour’s joints. The left leg crabbed itself around, beginning to circle faster.
“Help!”
Ugarit’s powered-armour suit swayed and began to pivot with increasing rapidity about its trapped right foot. Mechanisms sheared. Sparks flew. Two explosions sent sickly thick black smoke into the air.
“Aaaiieee!”
“Incoming!” Barashkukor threw himself flat. Fast as he was, the Warrior of Fortune reporter hit the dirt before he did. A solid loud crack! sounded. Panels of powered armour whipped across the compound, slamming into buildings. A choking, acrid smoke spread through the still, snowy air. Barashkukor buried his face in his arms while fragments hissed into the snow around him. Slush soaked through his combat trousers.
BOOM!-taka-taka-taka…click…
tkk!
“Is it safe?” Perdita del Verro whispered.
“Erm…Maybe. Yes. Of course!”
Orc marines picked themselves up out of the slush, brushing down green and brown combats and scratching their heads. The powered armour had apparently snapped at the waist, the top now hanging over upsidedown. It smoked gently.
“Uhhhnn…”
The Research and Development Department (Nin-Edin Marine Base) crawled out from under a collapsed shed. His combats steamed, and green blood dripped from rents in the camouflage cloth. Ugarit wiped his singed crest away from his blackened face, staggered to his feet, and aimed a cross-eyed salute several yards to Barashkukor’s left.
“Sorry about that, sir,” the tall orc corporal apologized, dazed. “I’ll take that one back to the planning stage.”
Barashkukor coughed and forced a sickly grin. The back of his neck burned with embarrassment at having the elf witness the failure. “We have enough weaponry to be going on with, Corporal. Put the rest of the stuff into production immediately.”
“Sir, yes sir!” Ugarit stared fixedly into the middle distance. “Permission to report sick, sir?”
“Permission granted,” Barashkukor sighed.
“Thank you, sir.” The tall, thin orc saluted, shut his eyes with his hand still raised, fell forward with his body unbending, and smacked face-first into the slush.
Perdita’s hand rested on Barashkukor’s thin, muscular shoulder; warm in the winter air. “Major, I see what you’re doing! Every strange new weapon you can throw at the besiegers stops them—for a day, or half a day, or a few hours—by sheer surprise. It’s a war of the mind. Psychological warfare.”