“Yur,” Hikz said laconically.
“Oh, shit…”
HHHHSSSSSSSH-ZK-FOOM!
Over the bustle of the squad reconnoitering the nearby tunnels, and Hikz’s mechanic orcs cracking open the crates they carried and rapidly assembling machinery, Lieutenant Gilmuriel Hunt-Lord heard the sound of the Bugs’ incomprehensible weapons firing.
“Move it!” he fluted. “Hikz, what is this new weapon?”
The lean corporal emerged from under a stout steel tripod, brandishing a spanner. “Tech-Captain Ugarit calls it a smart weapons system. Basically a heavy machinegun, sir. Marine Karakingat!”
Hikz scrambled up onto his feet, kicking the large mechanic orcs out of his way. A rather smaller orc in a desert camo forage cap staggered down the tunnel from the direction of the Plant Room, draped in heavy belts of ammunition, which he slung around his thin neck, over his arms, elbows, and around his waist, and still managed to trail on the ground.
“Sir, smart ammo, sir!” Karakingat saluted, dropping the belts on the wooden grating at Gilmuriel’s feet.
Gilmuriel squatted down. The belts of ammunition gleamed gold, catching the tiny amount of light elf eyes need for vision.
“The gun.” Hikz slapped the heavy machinegun on its tripod. It reeked of oil. “Got laser sensors, sir, that’s what the tech-captain calls ’em. It’ll lock on to anything that comes within its range, acquire a target, and blow the fuck out it. On its own—no operator. Called a smart gun, sir. This is the ammo for it. That can track a target after it’s been fired, sir. Karakingat, start bringing up the rest of it!”
The ammunition appeared bulkier than Gilmuriel was used to. A small panel set into the side of each round glowed with a liquid crystal display of targeting calculations.
The LCD blinked, shifting from numerals to letters.
…46-453-56…SIR, SHOOT ME AT THE BASTARDS NOW, SIR…647-3…
“Smart ammo,” the elf lieutenant commented.
He glanced up the corridor. From somewhere far above, in the outbuildings that clung to trunks two hundred feet above the forest floor, the sound of firing echoed. The Bugs would be entering the vast goldentree trunks whose chambers and grottos had been a city since the Sea’s withdrawal, unaccounted ages past.
“Load it up!” he ordered.
“Yessir!” The orc corporal fed one belt into the heavy machinegun and hooked up the next belt for automatic reload. “Marine Karakingat, prepare for weapons-test!”
“Sir, yes sir!” The small orc perked up his ears, rolled up the sleeves of his combat jacket, and began to flick triggers, bolts, and carriers back and forth.
“Checklist correct, sir!” Marine Karakingat peered down the cluster-barrels of the weapon. “Ready to go—”
Dakka-dakka-dakka-FOOM!
“Arrrgh!” Karakingat vanished. Green spatters splashed the far end of the root corridor.
“He’s been fired,” one of the large mechanic orcs remarked.
“Ah…” Corporal Hikz sighed. “We’ll never find another orc of his calibre.”
Hikz’s ridged brows furrowed as he looked down at the second ammunition belt in his hands. “Sir…”
Gilmuriel looked over the orc’s uniformed shoulder. The LCD display on the next rounds ticked past:
…08-97-6… HELL NO WE WONT GO… WE SHALL OVERCOME WE SHALL…
“Even smarter ammunition,” the elf lord commented. “Do what you can, Corporal. Sergeant! Do we have a KZ set up?”
“We can make this corridor a killing zone, L.t., and fall back through the supply rooms to the water-pumps.”
“Then let’s roll!”
HHHHSSSSSSSH-ZK-FOOM!
“Contact!”
Chunks of wood ricocheted. A line of brilliance opened, as if the world had cracked apart to show the sun. Blue-white, it seared down the corridor and impacted.
FOOM!
“Targets twelve o’clock, fifty metres low, down corridor!”
“Seen!”
“Seen!”
“Seen!”
“How many?”
“Thirty-plus!”
“Fall back by fire and movement!”
“Grenade!”
FOOM!
“Contact six o’clock! Thirty metres. They’re behind us!”
“ERV! Go, go, go!”
“One elf down!”
“Mother of Forests, carry him! Move out! Go, go, go!”
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
“Hostiles fifty-plus!
“Team Two pull back!”
“Arrrgghhhh!”
“Go go GO!”
Lieutenant Gilmuriel pounded across a lateral corridor, the back-flashes of weapons lighting the gnarled walls and the pierced gratings. The deep roar of the smart gun hammered at his ears. Elves ran past and fell into the shelter of sideturnings, waited until the next team ran past, and gave covering fire.
Gilmuriel slammed into the cover of the Plant Room doors. Elven combat boots thudded past him. The crouching elf, sweat-stained woodland camo bandanna tied behind his pointed ears, cradled his automatic pistol and stared back up the smoke-filled corridor. His elf marine squad hugged the scant cover of wall niches. Orcs in overalls and BDUs shambled back out of the haze.
The hefty bulk of orc sergeant Dakashnit slammed in beside Gilmuriel, her M16 stinking of hot metal. Ejected ammunition cases rattled across the gratings. She looked up and down the corridor, and then at the wooden-gated Plant Room beside her.
“If we close these doors, L.t., will they hold?”
“Not against those weapons. What are they?”
“Fuck knows, L.t.!”
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—–
The hammering fire of the smart gun abruptly cut off. Gilmuriel peered through the haze. Torch-beams cut the smoke, dazzling him until his elvish sight adjusted.
The beams dipped, crossed, jabbed towards the Plant Room. Sharp hisses of command echoed down the corridor. The first glint of a blue-black carapace brought Gilmuriel’s pistol up. Dakashnit closed her large, taloned hand on his arm.
“L.t.” The orc had a strange expression. “Look at that. It’s a textbook advance…”
Gilmuriel looked down the wood-walled corridor at the twelve or fifteen insectoids tactically advancing, bulgebarreled weapons held at the ready, hugging their hard exoskeletons into every piece of cover. Rapid commands passed between them. They advanced down the hundred metres of exposed corridor with frightening speed.
The elf lieutenant shook the orc’s hand off. “Sergeant, pull yourself together! Those Bugs are history!”
Dakashnit protested, “But look, L.t., they ain’t no different from us. They’re soldiers.”
Gilmuriel bared his teeth in a maniacal grin, sighting his pistol. “Okay, so they’re military history!”
FOOM!
Narrow beams spattered across the hardwood ceiling and seared down into the walkways underfoot, hissing and sparking electric-blue down their lengths. A dozen more hostiles appeared through the smoke from slowly smouldering goldentree roots.
“Pull out!” Gilmuriel bawled. “GO!”
BOOM! BOOM!
Grenades covered their escape. At the next RV point, Gilmuriel sank panting against the wall of a six-corridor intersection. Marines Aradmel Brightblade and Ravenharp the White sprinted into the open space, the twisting, screaming body of an elf carried between them, and laid her down. The lieutenant stepped over debris to stare at Byrna Silkentress. A beam of spitting light had caught her directly across one cheek, bubbling her dark skin. Another shot had glanced across her belly, not deep enough to sever her body in two, but deep enough to split the peritoneum wall beyond repair.