The Veil War

Mumbles cleared the switchback, running as fast as he could. In full armor and kit that’s never very fast and usually looks like a overweight, two-legged crab scrabbling over a hot griddle. Fister, Thomas, Dumbfuck and Arechiga followed right behind, the clatter of their gear clearly distinguishable from the much louder and more metallic clatter of the armor advancing down the roadway.

Every WWII movie I ever watched is coming around that corner, I thought. I had no idea those tanks could be so fucking loud.

“Raptors!” Dennison shouted. A fusillade of small arms fire from my platoon drove the velociraptors back off the shoulder of the ridge up and right of the gully I had chosen as my command post. If fucking Mumbles hadn’t screwed up, this place was just far enough away from the gate to stop the fascist onslaught.

Fucking Mumbles jumped over the lip of the gulley and skidded to a stop next to me just as the tank rumbled into view.

“Holy Jesus Fuck!” I said.

It barely fit on the narrow mountain road, scraping along the cliff side like my sister trying to parallel park.

“If an Abrams raped the USS Iowa, then that’s the baby,” Mumbles said.

It was taller than my house back home. Sharply angular, massive plates of armored steel supported on stupendous treads rolled inexorably forward. Poking up on the back was a quad mount of tank cannon. I knew they had to be tank cannon because they looked pathetic and small compared to the main guns. Guns!

Black smoke belched out the rear to the roar of the biggest diesel engine ever. With a grind of metal and an awful, hollow clank of gears the turret rotated. Two gigantic guns protruded from it, and as they spun slowly toward me it was like looking into the Holland tunnel.

“It’s the Landkreuzer P.1000!” Peters shouted. He sounded giddy.

“Fucking awesome. Now shoot it.”

“Sir, that thing is fifteen times bigger than an Abrams. It has a battleship turret on it.”

“Stop eye-fucking it and shoot it.”

“I don’t think it’s going to do much good,” Peters complained.

“SHOOT THE FUCKING THING, NERD!” I screamed.

Peters raised the AT-4 to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The tiny missile hissed out and the backblast scorched the lichen and bugs behind us. Peter’s launch was the signal, and three other missiles lanced out. Four missiles streaked across the road, spreading slightly and leaving corkscrewing trails of smoke. All of them hit; two on the front treads, two on the turret.

Both front treads were shredded by the explosions, the shaped charge warheads ripping right through the shroud and into the drive wheels. Peters’ rocket detonated at the junction of the turret and the body of the tank, disappearing in a cloud of smoke and fire and triggering secondary explosions somewhere inside.

The last missile hit the front glacis armor head-on and tore a gaping wound. Jagged, foot thick teeth of rolled steel armor jutted out from the man-sized hole, and smoke trickled out. Clearly, Nazi armor techniques had not kept up with modern missile technology.

“Fuckin’ A!” Peters yelled.

The battleship guns couldn’t turn with the turret immobilized, but they could depress. The right gun lowered, it was almost in line. The Landkreuzer lurched as its rear treads spun to push and turn the massive guns toward their target.

“SHOOT IT AGAIN! SHOOT IT AGAIN” I screamed.

Peters dropped the spent launcher tube and grabbed another.

The Landkreuzer rocked back and forth like a dog humping the carpet. The rear treads couldn’t get traction to move the huge weight. The gunners lost patience and fired.

BOOM. The blast of the gun alone was enough to almost kill us. My whole platoon was knocked over by the shock. The shell passed overhead in an instant, shattering the hillside behind us. Blood ran out of my ears and nose and a shower of rocks pelted us where we lay.

Peters picked up his dropped launcher, took aim and fired again. The missile hit the left gun barrel right where it joined the turret. With a deafening report, it detonated. The gun barrel lurched in its seat, and drooped sadly downward.

The titanic vehicle was backlit by a sun-bright flash. Seconds later, the entire mountainside shook. The Landkreuzer lurched sideways on the roadbed and its left tread slipped off to dangle for a moment in space. The 1000-ton bulk dropped to the ground with a clang that hurt my already-deafened ears. It teetered, then settled; billowing smoke pouring out of its many wounds.

“I don’t think we did that.”

Mumbles pointed up the mountain. A small mushroom cloud raced skyward.

***

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

A sudden urge to google overtook me this morning, and this is what I found:

When you type “Dinosaur Nazi” into the google, most of the top results are for two things: Dino D-Day and Chronos Commandos: Dawn Patrol. The first is a game, the second a comic book.

Dino D-Day started as a half-life mod, but is now grown up and a complete first-person shooter. The creators did up some fun propaganda posters:

Chonos Commandos: Dawn Patrol is a five-issue comic series from Titan Comics.

Awesome. Here’s some sample pages:

There’s some other stuff, too. In May another comic will be released, Half Past Danger:

Here’s a really old Dinosaur Nazi comic. And then there’s this:

And sprinkled throughout the search results, there’s links to this weird story.