The Veil War

I dropped prone because I expected incoming fire from at least three directions. Bohm’s screech still echoed as I hit the dirt, and fucking good thing I did, as he ran right through the space I had just occupied. His tail hit me on the head, and it was no happy labrador tail. I rolled to the right and brought up my M4, trying to track the Leutnant. He was a tiger-striped blur of motion as he cleared 30 mph and then hit the gas. He ploughed into Idaho, opened him up with one savage kick. Bohm snapped his jaws to the left and ripped out the Cherry’s throat. Blood poored from between the dinosaur’s teeth and ran down the scales of his neck.

I opened fire. I put three rounds into Bohm’s back, and then backed the fuck up. The rest of my squad opened up, and a fusillade of rounds hit the dinosaur Soldaten. Several dropped, letting out a god-awful cacophony of sound as they fell. Equip a tree full of eagles with 500-watt amplfiers and it couldn’t be worse.

Our mystery sniper joined the fun, taking pot shots at my men and the Nazis. He couldn’t seem to hit shit, though, so fuck him, I thought. I reverse crab-walked up the hill and, hopefully, out of the cross fire. Everyone had cover but me, which was so cosmically wrong I could barely process it.

Ramirez hid behind the still-twitching body of the Leutnent, firing blindly and ineffectually over the corpse. The rest of the squad had prudently retired behind the rock.

The dinosaur Nazis opened fire. Either they’re really slow on the uptake, or their mini-Fuhrer hadn’t briefed them on combat zone ettiquette. Their pistols couldn’t have much range, short-barreled as they were. I held perfectly still.

Bullets panged off the rock, throwing chips and dust into the air. The occasional .223 round came back, but not in any sort of quantity that could ease my mind. The nazi dinosaur second in command shouted in German. Two of the dinosaur soldaten moved up. The first carried what looked like an RPG launcher, and sure enough, the other carried a small rocket. The gunner crouched, tucked the bulky tube under his arm, then rested the weapon on his knee. No shoulders, right, I thought.

The loader pushed the rocket into the back and ducked out of the backblast zone. He tapped the gunner on the shoulder with his tiny hand as he gracefully spun away. The gunner pulled the trigger and a gout of flame and smoke enveloped him.

BOOM. The rocket hit the rock and detonated. Ramirez cried out as his legs got peppered with rock fragments. All the rifle barrels that had poked up from behind the rock vanished.

The dinosaur sergeant shouted, “Stürm!” and the entire bunch took off like a herd of turbocharged, crack-addled antelopes, screeching all the while and firing from the hip.

Feldwebel, I thought. That’s the German word for sergeant.

***

***

Click here to get see all published episodes of the Saga of Subcommandante Mumbles.