The Veil War

The A-10s blew by the plodding dinosaurs, banked sharp to the right and circled around. The radio crackled to life.

“Hounddog Actual, this is Goatlicker. I have eighteen apatosaurs two kicks south of your position. Those your hostiles?”

I held my hand over the mike. “I thought you said they were Brontosauruses?” I asked the sergeant.

“Same thing.”

I lifted the mike. “Roger, Goatlicker.”

“Engaging targets.”

The A10s came in low and slow. Missiles rippled off the hardpoints along the stubby wings, leaving trails of smoke as the spiraled lazily toward the plodding dinosaurs. They were huge, just fucking huge. That tank driving along next to one had to be at least the size of a Stryker, but it looked like it could drive right under the lizard without even tickling its belly.

Twenty feet above the ground, tracer fire lanced up into the air from the backs of the dinosaurs. The Nazis had rigged them up with baskets like the Africans did with the elephants, and made little pillboxes out of them with guns pointing out in all directions.

“The howdas have machineguns. Hannibal would have liked that,” Doubting Thomas said.

The machinegun fire did nothing to stop the incoming missiles. Navy CIRS could do that, but no human was accurate enough or fast enough to take out a missile in flight.

One of the missiles exploded mid-flight. Okay, normally not accurate or fast enough, I corrected myself. The missiles hit the dinos broadside. I watched as the missile plunged into the side of the brontosaurus like an enormous tranq dart. It disappeared, and a fraction of a second later detonated. The side of the dino bulged, and then burst, showering the tanks with tons of blood and steak tartar.

Four more hellfire missiles did for four more brontosauruses. Hard on the heels of the missiles, the A-10s roared in. Smoke poured from the nose of the planes as Goatlicker and his wingman unloaded thousands of rounds of 30 mm Uranium. Goatlicker walked his rounds up the road, stitching a line right across the tanks, which aggreeably enough exloded in a cloud of black smoke. Then right into lizards.

I couldn’t hear anything, but the dinos writhed in pain. Their long necks twisted back, and their legs buckled as they died. Men fell from the baskets and were crushed by the falling dinosaurs. The planes pulled up, turned to make another pass. The radio spoke, “Hounddog, Goatlicker. Lieutenant, I owe you a fucking lifetime supply of Heineken. All my life I dreamed of doing that.”

“We aim to please.”

“Do you have any goblins or dragons?” Goatlicker asked.

“Sorry, just dinosaur Nazis.” Jesus, some people are hard to please, I thought.

“Shame. I’ll just have to kill these some more.”

***

“We need to find where these things are coming from!” I said.

Doubting Thomas looked up the valley. “Well, follow the trail of dead dinosaurs, sir. That nice Goatlicker fellow seemed pretty enthusiastic and on task.”

“Good plan, sergeant. And I need to claim my lifetime supply of beer.”

***

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