The Veil War

The last of the feldgrau-clad, plus-sized velociraptors cruised by, their toes seeming barely to touch the ground as they ran. Jesus fuck they are fast, I thought as I rolled up and trained my carbine on their backs. I flicked the giggle switch to “fun” and opened up.

I saw little flowers of red appear in the grey wool as the bullets stitched across the dinosaur’s backs. Three of them dropped, faceplanting in the gravel trail, their tiny forearms flailing. Their tails lashed in the air as they struggled to stand. Two more bursts settled them down nicely. I dropped mag, reloaded, and let loose again.

The other Nazi lizards were slowly becoming aware of the error of their mistake. At a shouted command from the Feldwebel, they skidded to a stop, and then things got ugly. Slow on the uptake, sure; but once they got something in their heads they were wicked fast. Half the lizards twisted around like ballerinas with tails, quick and with a liquid grace. A half-dozen fat-barreled machine pistols zeroed in on my noggin. They opened fire as I tried to hug dirt.

My squad, showing remarkable and for them completely out of character presence of mind, took advantage of the change in Nazi plans drop a frag into the midst of the dinosaurs. This was a good plan for them, as it stood an even chance of inflicting casualties on something and did not expose them to fire. I covered my head with my arms and waited for the detonation.

The dinosaurs obviously recognized their danger, they scattered. Or rather, tried to scatter and then got scattered by the explosion. I rolled to one knee and fired at every dino still standing. In a few seconds, it was over. I stood there with a smoking barrel, looking at a pile of dinosaur steaks. Ramirez stood up from behind the Leutnant Bohm, looking around him in awe.

“You can come out now,” I said. My squad came out from behind the rock. “Who tossed the frag?” I asked.

“Buckshot did.” Bunch of girls, tattling on each other. I looked over at Buckshot, 6’ 4” of muscle and libido. And several ounces of buckshot in his left rear cheek from not getting out of a preacher’s daughter’s bedroom fast enough. TSA fucking hates him.

I smacked him in the helmet, hard. “Who the fuck else was on the other side of the rock, dumbass?”

“Sorry, sergeant.” Damn but he sounded like Chef from South Park. I couldn’t stay mad at the sorry son of a bitch, he just sounded too fucking cool.

“Right, anyone wounded?” a frantic patting of chest and groin revealed no obvious injuries.

Richardson and Arechiga were laying out James and the Cherry, collecting tags and closing their eyes. Fuck. Damn. Idaho. Funny guy, thick skin.  Stood by me through some weird and scary shit. No more pranks.  No more fucked up songs.  And now, I wouldn’t be able to kill the Cherry for calling me Sarge.

I waved Ramirez and Buckshot over. I pointed at the dead lizards. Their spotted tongues drooped out of slack jaws, and they kinda curled up backwards around their spines in death like they were inside-out armadillos. “Rifle through that shit. Bag any thing that looks valuable, or interesting. Especially maps, papers.”

I bent down and picked up one of the machine pistols. It was heavy, stamped metal construction. All in black, just like the MP-40 my great granddad brought back from the big one, and which four successive generations of my family had completely forgotten to register with any federal agency. It looked like an MP-40, too. Straight magazine a bit forward from the trigger, wire folding stock, simple iron sights. The trigger guard was bigger, though. To accommodate the claws? The pistol-grip was shaped a bit odd, too, but lifting it up, I could have operated it easily enough.

So I did. Weird, I thought. The charging lever was on the left. Are dinosaur nazis all southpaws? I reached over the top with my right hand and racked the lever. It’s a gun, alright. I aimed down the trail and pulled the trigger.

***

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