“Yessir.” Luzdrak blanched a very pale grey. “Sir, what are those things, sir?”
“I’ve told you. Just native wildlife,” Major Barashkukor said firmly. “Okay, marines, let’s bug out. Move it!”
The silent desert echoed to the shouts of orc marines. Barashkukor led the run for the trucks, the Corns marine Arakingu at his heels, an M16 a comfortable weight in his arms. Hitting cover behind the Bedford vans, he ducked down as the remaining two orcs in his team jumped for the cabins and ferociously gunned the engines.
“In!” the small orc snarled.
Clinging to the truck door, Barashkukor glanced back towards the tiny fort.
The first insectoid horror, outdistancing the rest, galloped over rock on segmented, clawed legs. It held two limbs outstretched before it. The thin tail jutted high over its head, spike or sting catching the sun. Metallic flashes shone from the body-segment. A thin whistling jetted from the clashing mandibles that dripped a black substance on the desert sand.
“Yo!” Luzdrak’s team broke for the trucks at the sound of engines.
“Fire at will!” Barashkukor leaned from one window of the lead truck with Arakingu, firing, the metal of the gun hot against his leathery hands. Rounds impacted on the insect’s chitinous shell and ricocheted off, leaving only silver metal smears: no damage apparent. He wrenched a taloned finger off the trigger, pulled a grenade, and hurled it towards the insect-monsters—that close? that large?—and ducked his head.
At the fort, mortars coughed.
FOOOOM!
Fragments of black carapace bowled along the rocks, end over end. Soft tissue spattered the truck. Barashkukor raised his head and glimpsed the insectoid thing rearing over the back of the truck, one forelimb missing, mandibles slavering.
The forelimb, even as it twitched, began to re-form. To grow. Fast.
“Hit it!” Barashkukor yelled at the orc marine driver. “Go, go, go!”
The truck’s wheels dug deep into sand, hit rock, and the vehicle lurched forward and away. Screams echoed from the morning behind them. The engine growled and roared.
“Sir!” Arakingu shook him by his black uniform collar. “Sir, what about Luzdrak and the rest!”
Barashkukor cuffed her across the side of her head, skinning his knuckles on her kevlar helmet. “Get through to HQ, marine! That’s your job.”
The small orc clung to the open window of the truck as it dipped and weaved across the desert. No mortar fire now. Sunlight flashed from shiny black shells. The hammer of automatic fire rang out across the desert. The second truck had not moved. Stalled.
“One thing they teach you in officer training.” Barashkukor looked at his radio operator, eyes hard, haunted, sad. “It doesn’t matter if none of the grunts get out, so long as the officer does. I’m command and control. I have to make it back out and report. Marine, get into the back of the truck and start slinging crates out; I want us lightened for speed!”
Barashkukor stared back. The heavy-shouldered forms of orc marines ran and scattered across the desert, going into cover behind rocks, firing. The hollow, unimpressive whuck! of grenades sounded. From the rear of the stalled truck, flame jetted. The shoulder-fired antitank missile impacted on one of the insectoids.
BOOOMM!
“Sales Force Alpha to Graagryk Headquarters!” He shoved the headset on and yelled over the engine’s roar, spraying automatic fire back towards the racing giant insects. The truck jounced wildly. “HQ, are you receiving? Acknowledge! We got us a fucking bug-hunt here, man! Are you—”
The front of the truck rose up at an angle of forty-five degrees.
The orc had one glimpse through the shattering windscreen of a rearing black carapace, frothing mandibles, and faceted eyes.
The truck flipped.
Barashkukor opened his eyes to see a truncated orc foot. All green with blood, the boot still on it, black leather covered in dust. It rested on rock a yard from his face. He rolled over, skin stinging from the sun. A stink of oil and petrol made him gag. There was the smell of feces. He looked down at his ragged, green-bloodstained, filthy combats. Shock chilled him; he could not feel what his eyes saw. A chunk of muscle tissue blown out of his thigh, large enough to put a fist through, and bone gleaming in the depths. And the foot was obviously his, too.
“Marine Arakingu…?”
The truck’s wheels still spun. Something hissed.
The bug loomed over him, black against the bright blue of the desert sky. Its segmented body convulsed, twitching, and the clawed forelimbs went under its body, into the clusters of rubbery black organs that hung down between the powerful hind legs. Barashkukor registered that some of the shine about its body-segments was black metal, not chitin. Devices, not organs.
Between him and the fort, nothing else moved but bugs.
A cold sensation flooded his back. The orc raised his head again. A Kalashnikov lay beside him, magazine still in place. Blood covered the bolt, wet and sticky. Arakingu lay on her back two yards away, helmet fallen from her bald head, her brains hanging out in a green glob. Barashkukor began to reach for the rifle.
The hissing came from the headset, still jammed into his long spindly ears.
The bug’s shadow fell across him.
“This is…Major Barashkukor…calling Graagryk. Over.”
“Graagryk receiving. Your signal’s breaking up, Major. What’s the situation on the ground? Over.”
The insectoid thing’s clawed forelimbs rummaged in the rubbery organs under its body. They came out clasping an angular, long shape. Barashkukor squinted sand-blasted eyes. Stock, receiver, barrel…
The insectoid being stood over him, a chitin-and-metal replica of an M16 held in its claws. The orc in shocked amazement gazed up at alien organs that might replicate weapons, his small, heavy jaw hanging open. Dizzily, he thought, But I suppose they had Corporal Uzkaddit to copy from.
It raised its forelimbs and pointed the organic weapon into the desert, pulling the replica trigger.
FOOM!
Shrapnel ricocheted.
“Graagryk calling Barashkukor! Major, give me a sit rep, now!”
A different voice. Ashnak’s familiar bass rumble, fading with the satellite’s struggle to keep the link open. Barashkukor’s mouth widened and he showed small fangs in a tired grin.
“General, I am receiving you…Foreign hostiles; eight seen; no mage-power; chameleon technology possible…” He breathed harshly. “Some kind of giant bugs, General. They followed us last night, took the patrols this morning. We couldn’t pull out…Man, we just got our asses kicked…!”
The muzzle of the organic weapon swept down, turning, aiming towards Barashkukor.
The coldness flooding his back, soaking his marine uniform jacket, was petrol.
“Barashkukor are you receiving me? We have target-acquisition. ETA bombers twenty-five minutes. Vacate the area!” And then, lost in static, “Barashkukor, for fuck’s sake get your skinny little ass out of there!”
Heat shimmered up from the rock of the Endless Desert, evaporating the fuel. Silence hung over the fort. From that distance Barashkukor could hear the chewing of mandibles over the unanswered hissing of the radio. The bug stood with its centaur-legs straddling him. He could move nothing but his arms.
While he could still feel the chill of petrol soaking through to his skinny back, and before the state of shock wore off to let him feel the pain of amputation, Major Barashkukor of the orc marines took the Kalashnikov in a two-handed grip, pointed the muzzle up at the belly of the bug, flipped the fire-selector to fully automatic, and squeezed the trigger.