The Veil War

I ran down the situation for the Lieutenant.

“Why should I believe that there are magical SOF types with invisibility cloaks who will blow the gate if we just attack a regimental size unit of fucking dinosaurs?”

“You didn’t believe me when I told you there were dinosaur Nazis, and look what happened to your uniform.”

“OK, point.”

“Hounddog, I need Fister and Thomas.”

“No fucking way. They’re the only two competents we have.”

“Yeah, but listen…”

***

The lieutenant led most of the platoon up the rocky scree to their appointment with destiny. I’d kept Arechiga and the Dumbfucker, and now Fister and Doubting Thomas were looking at me like I’d grown a dick out of my forehead.

Fister was a sleepy-looking little shit. Paranoid as fuck but hey, you get hit three times by RPGs and see how sunny your outlook is. The last encounter with murderous, rocket-propelled explosives was only last week, and his forehead looked like a hippy had tie-dyed it in blue, yellow and brown.

“How’s the head, Fister?”

He opened his eyes a little more and glared. “Right,” I said. “We ready?”

Arechiga and Dumbfucker nodded. Fister glared some more. Thomas looked doubtful. Surprise!

“We wait until Hounddog is in position.”

***

“Poodle, this is Hounddog actual. We are in position.”

“Shit-soo Actual this is the Subcommandante. Commencing operation let’s fuck with the dinosaur fascists some and piss off my lieutenant… on my mark.”

I waited a bit. Then a bit more.

“Mark.”

I dropped the mike and walked up the road.

My plan was simplicity itself. The activities of the overzealous A-10 pilots had wrecked the fascist armor on the narrow mountain road. Now, dinosaurs and actual human Nazis were bottled up behind the wreckage.

Some well-placed ‘splodey would clear the wreckage, and allow the dammed up fascist tide to sweep out, down the road and over the plains. Then Tactical Beardman and the Chad could do their thing and blow the gate.

Only problem? I was going to be on the road when the fascist tide flowed, with only my dear Lieutenant for cover.

***

“Well, there goes that plan.”

The Tiger II tank clanked and rattled down the mountainside like a discarded child’s toy. The triceratops backed up gingerly, the swastika painted on its crest clearly visible and by now only vaguely ridiculous. The fascist mahout rode right behind the crest, shouting commands and pulling on the reins to direct the enormous beast. The only thing missing was a flashing yellow light and a back-up beep.

Another tank clattered down the hill, still burning and leaving a spiral smoke ring as it dropped. Rather pretty, really.

“How now, brown cow?” Fister asked.

“Well, a frontal assault is clearly counter-indicated.”

“No shit, dumbass.”

I looked up the road. The two triceradozers were working hard and at the rate A-10 ravaged armor was going over the hill, the path would be clear in minutes at the outside. “Look, man, our goal was to clear the wreckage and encourage the krauts down the fucking hill. We have already nearly succeeded in our mission! How fucking cool is that?”

I neglected to mention the still-functioning tanks stacked up behind, and what looked like a couple companies of velociraptor Soldaten. “We need to, you know, kind of… punch them in the nose a bit, get them moving down the hill.” I thought hard for a moment. I need them angry, but I can’t slow them down.

“Let’s just light them up and see what happens.”

“Fuck you, Mumbles,” the NCOs muttered in stereo.

Two more tanks remained on the road. I loaded a grenade and with a thuump of my M203 sent it over the heads of the wrecking crew to land in the neatly ordered ranks of featherless ostriches. More grenades followed.

The Soldaten panicked, running into each other and bouncing off the cliff wall to the right. Two even jumped off the other side to cartwheel down a hundred feet of rocky, 60-degree slope. Awesome. Human Nazi officers were shouting orders, but over the screech of the velociraptors I don’t think anyone heard a single word.

We launched another salvo of grenades, and backed around the switchback just as the return fire started up. Machine gun fire sparked off the rocks as we grabbed cover. I ducked as a tank round hit a boulder and spalled rock chips like grenade fragments. A rocket blew past, and detonated in mid air over the valley.

I looked at my men. “Are they angry enough you think, or should we try harder?”

***

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“Well, how do we do the gate, then?”

“Leave that to me. What we need you to do is distract the scaly fascist menace so that we can.”

That left me feeling pissed, and like I just took a step up onto a stair that wasn’t there. Fuck! There I was all ready to sacrifice my command to the greater glory and save the world and now I get a “Thanks, kid, the big boys have got this one. Run along and play.”

Damn me, I do not get stood up at my own prom.

“Right. Who is we? Or are you secretly the king of France?”

“Me and Chad. It’s enough. Actually, he’s enough. I’m just an apprentice Chad.”

“What, like the fucking Sith?”

“Yeah, kinda. Except better-looking and we drink a shit load more.”

OK, that’s fair. “Alright. My lieutenant is probably already charging up the hill, head out the window with his tongue flapping in the wind. I’ll see about creating some FFCC.”

The apprentice Chad cocked an eyebrow. “Fun, Fantasy, Confusion and Chaos.”

“Right on, then.” He smiled and faded from view like a Cheshire cat.

Damn, I need a transfer.

***

I picked up the receiver. “Chow-Chow Actual, this is Poodle. What’s your 20, big mama?”

There was a long pause. “Poodle, Hounddog Actual.” He sounded like he was wired really, really tight. “Waist deep in blood, motherfucker!”

Shit, the LT has gone hardcore. “And coming up the north road on foot.”

“Yapdog Actual, substantial enemy forces deploying on north road ahead of your position. Cute little Nazi tanks in company strength or more, velociraptor Soldaten with small arms; unknown numbers of apatosaurs with heavy weapons. Request air and artillery support, can direct fire.”

“Poodle, CAS inbound…”

***

“You fucked up.”

Damn it, that sneaky shit is annoying. Tactical Beardman looked pissed, but it was hard to tell under all the hair and sunglasses.

“How?”

“You bottled them up. There are now more tangos down by the gate than there were fifteen minutes ago.”

“A lot more dead ones. Those were some good explosions.”

“Distraction, Subcommandante, distraction. You’re the pied piper. Play a tune, and lead the dinosaur Nazis away from the gate.”

***

Hounddog rounded the corner. Tall and slender, he led the first squad up the road. His cement-mixer vomit cammo now had the abattoir variant applied. The rest were more or less liberally coated with blood.

“The British are coming!” I shouted.

Hounddog’s eyes about crossed. He was on the edge. Damn it, I shouldn’t need inter-dimensional dinosaur Nazis to wind up my lieutenant this much. I’m slipping.

“Fucking Mumbles, do you have any idea what happens when three hellfire missiles hit a huge fucking dinosaur?”

“Is there a priest or a midget in this joke?”

He ignored me. “It explodes. And all the insides become the outsides. Now my uniform is soaked in fucking Brontosaurus blood…”

“Apatosaurus,” I corrected.

“Fucking dinosaur Nazi blood, because I waded through a literal river of blood to get up to here. I puked up the best meal I’ve eaten in weeks. Division is going to be up my ass for the Humvees that got washed off the road in that river of blood, and they’re probably going to dock my pay for every single missile that fucking Goatlicker fired. He’s probably not getting me my beer. Thomas has a fucking spear through his arm, for Chrissakes! Somehow, Mumbles, you fucking caused for this, and I will see you hang.”

“Stop your bitching,” I said.

Hounddog leaned into his pointing finger. “It’s not bitching ‘cause I ain’t no one’s bitch. It ain’t griping ‘cause no one here’s my boss. And it ain’t complaining, ‘cause I don’t expect anyone will do anything about it. It’s a rant.”

I stared at him.

“What!” he demanded.

“I’m waiting for Yoda or Socrates to burst out of your chest or something.”

“Fuck you, Mumbles.”

***

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I followed the bloody path that Goatlicker and his wingman left us. And Jesus, it was oceans of bloody. I’ve seen more than one man bleed out, and that left a huge sticky red mess. You have no fucking idea how much blood is in a sixty-foot long brontosaurus.

“I’m no closer to my lifetime supply of beer, sergeant.”

“Those A-10s don’t have infinite ammo. They’re going to run out of bullets before they runout of dinosaurs.”

“Look on the bright side, Thomas. At least they’re not bulletproof.”

Doubting Thomas’ face screwed up as he tried to process good news. His system rejected the data, and he spat on the floor of the Humvee.

***

“Sir?” Dennison asked.

“What!”

“We’ve run out of dead dinosaurs.”

“Okay.”

“Meaning to say, sir, I see some live ones.”

I sat up straight, and set the map down. We were at the edge of the valley, and the ground was turning sharply up. The sandy soil of the valley bottom gave way to rockier ground, and ahead the dusty road twisted into a series of switchbacks as it reached up toward the ridgeline a thousand meters up. Crawling down the road was a menagerie of dinos and vintage warmongery. “A-10s still on station?”

“No sir, they were bingo fuel and went back to base for gas and gulp.” Damn, they were doing such a great job blowing shit.

“Well, it’s up to us, then. Light the fuckers up!”

“What with, sir?” Dennison clearly regretted that statement. Why do these people ask questions about every order?

“Whatever shoots, that far. We do have things that shoot far, don’t we?” I clearly remembered briefings on things that shot really far.

“Aah, TOW missile?”

“Then do that.” Fuck having to focusing on stupid shit when I should be like Mumbles and just give blowjobs for free shit. Damn, I want my free beer. I want pizza. Fuck that, the first thing after we blow these dinosaur Nazis, I will take a run for some Chinese food.

Two missiles leapt from the back of the Humvees, arched into the sky on pillars of smoke colored rose and black. They reached apogee and pitched down, reached for the brontosaurus Nazis. Imagine a poodle in a microwave, but seven orders of magnitude larger. Blood and gore filled the narrow mountain trail, creating a dam of just recently alive flesh. The German tanks stopped, unable to proceed.

“Machineguns!” I ordered. The M2 gunners opened up. Laser lines of tracers reached up the valley, laid low the German soldiers scrambling off the carcasses of the dinosaurs. Sparking off the armor of the tanks.

“Move out!” We raced up the valley wall, and hit the first switchback at speed, simultaneous with the first rounds from the bottlenecked Nazis.

I held on as the Humvee took the turn and the wheels spun. We were in the shadow of the mountain and the enormous dead brontosaurus as we raced up the road. “We’re not going to make it around the corpses. When we hit flesh, dismount.”

Dennison looked at me oddly, but nodded.

***

The dead brontosaurus was fucking enormous. And dead. Blood ran in streams down the dusty path, thick red with a light coating of yellow sand. Its long neck stretched up the hill to the right, its tail drooped off down to the left. The vast bulk of its fuselage blocked the road lengthwise. It was the size of a fucking house. A nice house.

I pointed at the head. “Dennison, flank the Nazis. Climb up on the head and lay down covering fire. Thomas, establish a base of fire on the tail. I will lead an assault up over the ass and mid-section.”

Okay, I thought, that didn’t sound as cool as it did in my head.

***

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I peered over a low rise of bare stone at the top of a low shoulder of the ridge that overlooked the fascist inter-dimensional gate. At least, I assumed it was an inter-dimensional gate. I mean, what the fuck else would it be?

The last of a company of Tiger II tanks squirted out of the glowing disk and motored off to join its comrades at the assembly point half a click down the hill. Even in the bright sunlight, the gate gave off an eldritch, cold blue glow. By rights, that light should be shining in a foglit, sunless night. But we make do with what we have, and that’s a glaring bright day in the mountains.

The surface of the disk wriggled disturbingly. Fifteen meters in diameter, it stretched wide enough to pass most any vehicle though the bigger apatasaurs had to duck to get through. On either side squatted a Frankenstein’s laboratory assortment of apparatus, casting off fat sparks and the occasional lightning bolt to the edge of the gate. Even from here, I could smell the ozone. Thick black cables snaked from the gate equipment to a antique-looking six-wheeled truck spewing diesel smoke.

I slid down and looked at my squad. “There’s no fucking way we’re taking out all the shit that’s already come across. Even vintage tanks are still fucking tanks. And dinosaurs are still fucking dinosaurs.”

“But! That gate looks like a huge sack of fail waiting for us to happen to it. We knock out that gate, and nothing else can get through. We save the world.”

They stared at me blankly. I took that for assent. “Right. Rockets on the gate, rockets on the generator truck. Covering fire on anything that returns fire. Once we have a confirmed kill on the gate, then we run the fuck away up the hill to the OP.”

“Good plan, Subcommandante.”

“Fuck!” I about leapt out of my skin when I heard the low voice behind me. I’m not superfly stealth superninja, but people generally do not sneak up on me like that. I turned, and behind me was a squat little tattooed motherfucker with a huge bushy beard and sunglasses. Dressed head to foot in expensive tactical fashions. A fucking tactical ZZ Top.

“Well, hey, Billy Gibbons.”

“Nice. One problem, though. You light up the gate mechanism, it goes off like a pony nuke. 1.5 Hiroshimas minimum, maybe more depending on the altitude on the other side. Do you think you’re outside the blast radius?”

“OK, pro tip. Good to know. Also good, in roughly descending order of my aching desire to know, would be how we blow the gate without blowing ourselves, how you know, and who the fuck you are.”

“Good questions. You can ask Chad about the last two. The first, well, that’s classified. I assume you know how to stop blowing yourselves.”

“Oh, Jesus H. Fuck. You’re going to pull that shit in the middle of a dinosaur Nazi invasion?”

“Calm the fuck down, Subcommandante. Shit, this ain’t new. Happens every few years. The worst was in 1958. Why do you think the French left NATO? Fucking embarrassment at failing to stop a Nazi invasion for the second time in two decades.”

***

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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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“Fuck!” Recoil drove the weapon hard up and to the left. Those tiny little arms myst be stronger than they look; that little popgun has a wicked kick to it, I thought. I dropped my arm, let the machine pistol swing. OK, my awesome attack from behind Rambo tactics worked awesomely. With Idaho and Cherry down, we’re minus one effective.

“Arechiga, get eyes on the trail. Richardson, start looking down in the valley, the fuckers must have come from somewhere. In the movies, there’s always a shiny glowing gate or some shit that the monsters come through. Find it. The rest of you, pretend like you’re in the Army.”

I walked over to the dead dinosaur Nazis. Ramirez was going at his task with a will, sorting through the dead fascist lizards’ belongings with the cool unconcern of a veteran butcher. Or, the blank incomprehension of a low-grade moron. One of the two.

Buckshot was being more diffident. I came up behind him, “Dead lizards don’t bite,” I whispered. Half of Buckshot jumped three feet in the air, startled beyond all measure. The other half, aware that his beloved sergeant was in the AO, didn’t. The result was amusing beyond all measure.

God, I love my job.

Ramirez had made a pile of loot. Aside from the military gear – ammo pouches and random kit there were some wallets and personal items. I picked up a wallet and opened it. The main pocket had some money; I pulled it out and saw ones, fives, a ten. They all said “Reichsmark” and had pictures, clumsily printed in reddish-orange and kind of blurry. The fivers had Hitler. Wasn’t sure, but the ones maybe had fat Goering. There was a dinosaur with a fritz helmet on the ten.

The wallet had some ID cards, random shit. And a black and white photo of what I presumed to be a girl dinosaur with a scarf in front of a big building with a volcano in the background, with palm trees. Good Christ, Helga Velociraptor on the homefront. This isn’t helping, I realized. I stuffed the wallet in my pocket.

“Ramirez, where’s the Leutnant’s shit?”

Ramirez pointed to another pile. On top was a leather satchel. I opened that, saw maps and dispatches. The dispatches looked like they were typed with a drunk typewriter, the lines of text wiggled up and down across the page. I stuffed them back in and slung the satchel over my shoulder. Someone would want to see that.

***

“Subcommandante?” Richardson asked.

“What!”

“I found a big shiny thing,” the private said.

“All is proceeding as I have foreseen.” My men looked at me with new-found awe. I walked over and grabbed the scope from Richardson. He pointed down valley, north and maybe 200 m below our level.

And, yes, there it was. A big shiny, sparkly round thing shitting out dinosaurs and Wehrmacht hardware like an assistent crack addict cranking out babies hoping for the welfare moneyz.

“Peters! You play with models and faggoty shit. Tell me what this is.”

Peters trained his eyes through the scope. “Looks like Panzer IVs lining up below the shiny thingy. Aah, further down there’s some Panzerkampfwagen VIB’s… Sweet, Tiger II’s! Those were the best tanks of the war! There’s some FlaK auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagens, and some Sonderkraftfahrzeug 250’s… Holy shit, they’ve got a Landkreuzer P.1000! They never built any of those…

I smacked him in the head. “Translate, nerd!”

“Sorry, sergeant. They’ve got a few dozen tanks, mostly Panzer IVs, good tanks; and a sprinkling of Tiger IIs, arguably the best tank of the war. They’ve got some tracked anti-air, some half tracks for infantry, and some VW jeeps. Not a whole lot yet, but…”

I nodded and waved him silent. Not much now, but the longer the gate is open, the more comes through. Pretty standard, really.

“Gather round!” I ordered. My squad shuffled forward. “The dinosaur Nazi menace is coming through a gate, which Richardson here has helpfully located.”

“I have a plan.”

***

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“Chihauha Actual, possible hostiles. Location 1000 meters north-northwest our position. Unknowns appear to be Nazi Dinosaurs. Over.”

Fuck you very much, Mumbles. Wait, what? “Poodle, say again all after Unknowns. Over.”

“Wiernerdog Actual, I say again, Nazi Dinosaurs. November, Alfa, Zulu, India. Fucking Nazis. Fucking Dinosaur Nazis.” You have got to be kidding me, I thought. All the little morons love their Sergeant. And now he’s one of them.

“ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH MUMBLES?”

The radio went dead.

“Goddammit!” I walked into the command tent.

Corporal Dennison came up holding a piece of paper gingerly with two fingers. “Sir, I can’t understand what you’ve written here.”

“It’s English, Dennison, read it.”

“Sir, I’m not sure about that. What’s a ‘whither machine’?”

“Nevermind. Mumbles called in hostiles, between him and the OP.”

I called to Doubting Thomas. “Get first squad mounted up. Take… Fuck, just take everything.”

Sergeant Thomas strode down the dusty path, screaming. Behind him he left a dusty tornado of scrambling soldiers.  God damn, I think I’m getting an officer stiffy.

“Call this in. I want air on station in five minutes, ready to pound shit flat. Fuckheads if they’re there, Mumbles if they’re not.”

“And get fucking Mumbles back on. I want words with him.”

***

Five minutes later, four Humvees raced across the sere ground, leaving the base and the Afghan village behind. A line of dusty green marked the line of the river. All around the heights towered above, beautiful and a vast hiding place for the armed and disgruntled.

The men were tight; watchful and alert. I gave the map to the corporal. He could read it. “Fuck!” I screamed as my head almost tagged the dash, and my Humvee almost assfucked the Humvee in front. “Why the fuck we stop?” I looked around, saw nothing. I grabbed my carbine and unassed the Humvee.

Doubting Thomas peered down range through his Zeiss binoculars. “Sup’, Thomas?”

“Sir, have the locals started growing bigger camels?”

“Aah, negative. Do I want to know why you ask?”

Thomas let loose a shallow sigh. “You’re gonna hate this sir.”

“What!”

“There’s a column of brontosauruses or whatever the fuck. They’ve got swastikas on them.”

“You are fucking with me.” Thomas handed me the glasses. It took me a second to focus, but Holy Mother of Shit.

“You forgot to mention all the artillery on their backs.”

“I was getting to that,” Thomas said. “And if I’m not mistaken, those are a couple Panzer IVs”

“Where the fuck did Mumbles find nazi dinosaurs? He’s praying to Elder Gods just to fuck with me.”

Two A-10s streaked overhead. Dennison handed me the radio.

***

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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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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.

***

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“Americans?” the Leutnant asked.

“Yes.”

The dinosaur didn’t have expressions, his face was immobile. Bohm’s only real options were bugging out his eyes and dropping his mouth open. Which he did, and that made him look like a nightmarish, scaly, fascist version of Ramirez.

I didn’t like that train of thought.

“Ve vere informed… Zat ze Americaner…” he trailed off into silence. Not tracking. Operation Mindfuck achieves operational readiness! How long it will work I have no fucking clue, I thought. I sensed the men behind me getting nervous. Time for phase two, intelligence gathering.

“I note that you are dinosaurs.”

“Ve are loyal citizens of ze Fifth Reich. Sieg Heil!” His little arm shot up in the air like a five year old that really, really knows the answer to a question. Kinda cute, really; if surreal as all fuck.

I guess that hit a chord, though. “I do not question your zeal, Leutnant Bohm, though others might.”

Bohm cocked his head again, cute puppy fashion. “Vat are you doing in zese mountains! Vat is your name?” The Leutnant raised his stubby machine pistol. The barrel was disturbingly wide.

“As I told you, Leutnant Bohm, I am Subcommandante Mumbles. And we are the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios Del Sendero Luminoso Y Entocinado,” I explained.

“Sendero Luminoso Y Entocinado!” I shouted, scaring the cherry and Ramirez. “And we will not rest until the running dog libertarian ancaps are vanquished! We have a saying, Leutnant. ‘Pueden tomar nuestres vidas, pero nunca nuestro tocino.”

“Nunca Jamas!” my men shouted on cue. The dinosaurs started, and they all raised their guns. Maybe… going a little too far. And I just ran out of Spanish.

“Are you here to fight the Americans!” I asked.

The nazi dinosaur uncocked its head. “Ve establish a foothold for ze Reich, and ze Vaterland’s glorious return!”

“So, you’re fighting the Americans?”

“Ve vill destroy all who resist.”

Okay, that sucks all ass. And I thought traipsing up and down the mountains of assfuckistan with nothing but a smile on my face and murderous thoughts in my head was just perfect. I had no idea what perfection was. Perfection is staring straight into the jagged-toothed, scaly mouth of the vanguard of a fascist invasion backed up by nothing more than a baker’s dozen of mouthbreathing 4th ID fucktards.

Breathtaking.

“Well, Leutnant Bohm, I would like to be among the first to welcome our new lizard overlords. My men can lead you straight to the hiding places of the perfidious Americaner!”

“Sendero Luminoso Y Entocinado!” I proclaimed again, and the lizards started again. They didn’t seem to like loud noises, but their eyes tracked movement like a hawk. And if my geek nephew is right, it’s because they’re cousins.

Maybe this will work. Maybe. If I can get the dinosaur nazis down into the valley, then Hounddog would have to believe me. Shit, what am I saying? He’s perfectly capable of disbelieving things right in front of him. Fuck this for a joke. God hates me, he does, I know it.

Pwang! A bullet ricocheted off the rock. A second later, I heard a distant report. No, now God hates me.

The Leutnant Bohm opened his mouth and roared. His tongue was spotted like a Chow’s. Hey, a small part of my brain, you can use that next time you call Hounddog. That mouth was fucking huge, and it contained at least eleventy-billion teeth. Bohm roared. And funny, it sounded exactly like Jurassic park.

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