Mary Gentle - Grunts

Dust rose up from the plain north of Ferenzia. Weapons and carapaces glinted through the murk. Dust rose up from the low ridges, canyons, gullies, and cliffs of the hills. Below every ridge, concealed in every hollow, orcs and other marines in combat drab crouched with their weapons. Infantry battalions, field artillery groups, land-mine companies; signals, engineers, anti-aircraft, antitank and missile batteries; and behind them the auxiliary services, motor transport, fuel supply, repair workshops, bakery and butchery…

Cobra gunships and Hueys crisscrossed the midday skies above Ferenzia, flying nose-down over peaked roofs and spires. Radio traffic filled the air. Surface-to-air missiles roared into the sky.

“We have a go situation!” Sergeant John H. Stryker of the U.S. Marine Corps put the jeep into a skidding handbrake turn and brought it around in front of Ashnak’s field command tent, five miles to the north of the city. “Sir, everyone and everything is where it ought to be, sir—on time, sir!”

“Fuck me,” Ashnak said as he leaped down from the vehicle. “Well done, Sergeant. Maybe you Otherworld marines do have your uses.”

Followed by Barashkukor, the great orc strode into the command tent.

“I want recce reports on the Bugs’ firepower and tactics. Then I want a confirmation of the assault plan; and rehearsals, if performed. Then I’ll give orders. Any questions?”

Lieutenant Chahkamnit, Commissar Razitshakra, Biotech-Captain Ugarit, Sergeant Dakashnit, Lieutenant Lugashaldim, and the higher-ranking general staff, seated on rickety chairs around comlinks and map-tables, shook their tusked heads. The canvas-filtered sunlight gleamed on one marine, not an orc, tall and skinny, in a uniform decorated with beads, scarves, and silver trinkets.

“I’ve got that report on what it is we’re facing here, sir.” The hard-eyed elf Lieutenant Gilmuriel lounged to his feet. He snapped slender fingers. Ugarit cranked the handle on a kinematographic machine. A jerky moving image flashed on the pull-down screen.

“I don’t know what the Bugs call ’em,” Gilmuriel drawled, “sir. We call this one a ‘blaster.’”

A bolt of charged particles seethes through the air of Thyrion, exploding at the point of impact, taking out three elf marines. Another elf seems caught in a beam of wavering air. Her body explodes in a rain of blood.

“That’s a ‘disruptor,’” Gilmuriel continued. “They use that one a lot. That thing there—”

A black cylinder of metal hovers in the air, above the ruins of the City of the Trees.

“—we call that a ‘hunter’ missile. It has the instincts of an elf, to track and follow its quarry. Explosion has a two-hundred-metre radius. Couldn’t get footage of the ‘homing’ grenades they use, sir. This…”

The elf glared at Ugarit. The skinny orc clicked the kinematographic machine rapidly, removed a slide, and replaced it the other way up.

A wavering bolt of energy tracks across an open jungle clearing, impacts on an armoured vehicle, explodes, and knocks the APC forty feet into the air.

“‘Plasma gun.’” The elf leaned one foot up on a chair, resting his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. He wore a brightly patterned scarf as a headband, and his pointed ears were pierced with silver studs. “If they can see us, man, they can hit us! There are heavy weapons versions of that. And a contra-gravity harness, sir, I’m certain.”

Ashnak scowled. “What’s their armoured capability? What about airpower?”

The hefty black orc sergeant beside Gilmuriel stirred.

“Ain’t seen nothing else but infantry, sir,” Dakashnit said. “Their flight capability is jump-packs. No troop transporters. No ground vehicles, less’n they got some of ours. Hell, Commander, they don’t need ’em.”

“Well, we’ve had about all the time for rehearsals we’re going to get—” Ashnak swung round.

Dust-covered and sweating, the nameless necromancer stumbled into the tent and shambled into the circle of ores. “ Talking? You orcs should be out there fighting! You shall pay for thish disobediensche.”

Ashnak took two swift paces forward and loomed over the necromancer. “ Sit. Down. ”

The nameless found himself sitting in one of the folding chairs.

“About bleeding time, too,” Ashnak growled. “My troops have moved out of the assembly areas to the forming-up points and startline. You, Lord Necromancer, can get the Light’s troops off their asses! I’m committing the Light to the attack in Ferenzia itself. Hold ’em as long as you can, then pull back.”

The necromancer glared. “That is a task for marines!”

“I’ve got more than enough problems,” the big combat-clad orc snarled, “without fighting through built-up areas. Get those lily-livered sons of bitches down there! Those Bugs are throwing fuck-knows-what against us! You’re gonna hold ’em up enough so’s we can take ’em on their way north out of the city, here on this line of hills. Any questions?”

There was silence in the command tent. The nameless necromancer slobbered and hissed, standing and drawing himself up to his full height.

“Sir?”

A hand went up at the back.

“Sergeant Stryker?” Ashnak said.

The blond Man stood. New combats and weaponry made him the very image of a marine. His muscular frame bulked as large as any there, except the largest orcs. The nameless necromancer sniffed suspiciously. That would be the Otherworld marine’s aura, Ashnak guessed. He gestured for the Man to continue.

“Well, it’s just this, sir.” John Stryker shifted his feet uncomfortably. His blue eyes met Ashnak’s.

“I know the Bugs are supposed to be these homicidal, mindless, alien psychopaths and killing-machines,” John Stryker said, “but has anyone ever tried just talking to them?”

Some thirty minutes later, at a forward gun position on the edge of the line of hills, the small orc major said, “It might work, sir.”

Ashnak ducked down behind the sandbag walls. “Are you out of your mind, Major?”

“Nossir!” Barashkukor protested. His cyborg-eye whirred, left its socket, and extended on a jointed steel rod. With some care the small orc extended it over the sandbags of the hillside gun emplacement.

Having chewed up the Light’s armoured infantry in the streets of Ferenzia and mangled the crack elf cavalry on the plain beyond, the Bug soldiers were just becoming visible through the haze. Walking towards them, carrying a white flag on a pole, Sergeant John H. Stryker of the U.S. Marine Corps strode down the track from the hills.

“A brave Man!” Barashkukor enthused. “A true marine! Don’t you think so, Supreme Commander?”

“I think the Dragon’s Curse has a lot to answer for.” Supreme Commander Ashnak lowered his binoculars and grunted, crouching over the orc marine with an RT backpack, phoneset in his other taloned hand. “At odds of fifteen to one against us, I’ll try anything. Let’s hope the Visible College’s translation talismans work, soldier.”

The distant figure of John Stryker reached his goal.

Barashkukor focused his extended eye.

“I see him, Supreme Commander! He’s…he’s talking to them!”

Heat haze jumbled the air. As if through running water, Major Barashkukor watched the blond crewcut Man sergeant.

The Man stood before a semicircle of Bugs, gathering around him. They towered over his six-foot height by eighteen inches or more. The sun gleamed blue from their black carapaces and dripping jaws. Dust stained their hard exoskeletons, and their black living-metal weapons were dull shapes of menace.

Stryker drove the pole of the truce flag into the dirt.