6:57, Rotation 265 / 365, 232 AE, -68.125558, -67.083547, Reath

  “Sha bois and sha, take the westwards lower flank, where all those warelugs are? Expect some resistance.”

  “Aye, Nastya will tear her nails into ‘em.”

  “Ah- wait, sorry War Master, what did you just say? Nastya?”

  “Ye, Durban, it’s what I call me gun.”

  “Ah, it’s what I call my bike.”

  Awkward silence, as Raigo hoped to dear God that Zahul did not realize from this exchange that the Chief was coveting on his neighbor’s wife, but Zahul had already known this a while ago. Their exchanges on the Chief’s Junk were obvious enough. Gnosta had been honest enough to admit to him one time while in bed, that she did kind of fancy the Chief a nakaz bit.

  She felt bad for him, the poor, lonely widower. Plus, those dreadlocks were pretty fetch. Polyamorous relationships were par for the course in Orcan society, and the honest practical truth was that bonding the Thraxes household to the Varoka household would have been better for the finances of all parties involved. Raigo had too much money to spend, and no children to spend it on, and Zahul was skint.

  But Zahul, having ancestral machismo, would allow no such thing. He didn’t want Githarie to get any skanky ideas! He had been able to use his aura to playfully parley it into a negotiation about ‘free passes’ and then teased Gnosta about which of the other middle aged orcan ladies in Rothera, who obviously fancied the village’s greatest war hero, the smuggler who ferried refugees to their final homes, she thought he fancied. After quick and witty repartee, in which they bantered back and forth about which orcans they would skai, or wouldn’t skai, or would allow the other to skai, or wouldn’t allow the other to skai, they ended that conversation with a passionate bout of skai. Ah, good times. But to be fair, in remembering, Zahul understood why Raigo would feel this way, because Gnosta really was the prettiest middle aged orcan lady in Rothera, after all the comparison was said and done. He realized he was one lucky uggo of an orc.

  But not so lucky after the last rotation, he also reminded himself, bitterly so.

  As the Chief had promised, all the Rotherans who wanted to have a go had gathered their kroozers to attack before the waking hour, and strike when the San Martin adults were not ready. There was no way they could be ready because they had no idea that they were about to be attacked, because they were not the ones that started it. Their lousy drug dealing kids were.

  All the Rotheran kroozers, including the Defiant, were anchored now near Marguerite Bay, galling in their sheer lack of skais given. Why give any? The Rotherans outnumbered the San Martiners.

  They had gone over the plan a while ago. Artillery had been mounted on the Rotheran kroozers to soften up any San Martin resistance. Some of them were operating automaton whirligigs with packed gunpowder payloads, just simple saltpeter, charcoal, and a fuse, from the deck. They didn’t have fancy cameras or equipment since such advanced magick was usually fried by dragonbreath aura a long time ago, so they had to use binoculars to try and guesstimate where their drone had to release their packages.

  This was gonna be a wagh all over again. Hopefully not a WAAA- never mind.

  The commandos, led by Zahul, were now equipped with wetsuits. They would dive first, sneaking in to take over critical infrastructure. There were rows and rows of warehouses, what they contained the Rotherans could guess, and perhaps some sort of conditional surrender could be leveraged with whatever wares they housed. More important was to cut the lights, so that the Rotherans would have advantage by night vision goggles, echolocation, transmogrified night vision, and general surprise. Then cut the alarms so that reinforcements could not be alerted. Then tag and bag.

  Once crippled from the inside, the Rotheran armada, more a slapped together crew of crews, would dock.

  Yahka stood at the ready on the deck of the Defiant, swaying with the tide, stroking his old friend, Big Bertha. Gnosta was up in the crow’s nest on a gyro stabilizing platform with Dragunov. Big Bertha was not particularly big for an Artillery cannon, delivering only 152mm shells, but Yahka was not a particularly minimalist engineer, and so he built Betty with his bare hands to resemble very much his portly figure. But it did mean that Betty had overlarge cooling drums, and so Yahka could keep firing Betty again, and again, all rote long. Better believe that Yahka had more than one partner than Betty that he could do that for.

  He had with him his pipboi and arcane wandpad which he had commanded by runepad to transmit and receive into a radio wave channel he and Zahul had decided upon a few hours ago. Zahul had commandeered Zhak’s pipboi and wandpad, and could use the camera function – there was no proper storage space that wasn’t scrambled to actually save the picture, so the only data that could be captured was a rough estimate of the positioning coordinates using the accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope – to send some numbers over to Yahka, who would then decipher that to Big Bertha. But Yahka didn’t trust these gadgets, they were finicky and inaccurate, so he had transmogrified wyvern eyes, just to double check with a good old eyeball. But this meant he had to wear extremely thick glass bottle hyperopia spectacles to read the damn wandpad.

  He spoke into it instead, pressing one of only three buttons, “Cap’n, come in, over.” He released it.

  Zahul, Melloh, Zholl, and Zhon, who had insisted on coming so the Chief just gave him a box of grenades to hitch to his backpack straps and called it a rote, were sitting on the edge of the Junk, ready to flip backwards for a dive in.

  Zhak’s pipboy crackled, “Cap’n, come in, over.”

  Zahul pressed his button impatiently and said, “What is it, Yahka.” He let go of the button.

  There was another awkward silence.

  Crackle, “Sha hafta say over, otherwise how’s I’m supposed ta know sha done castin’? Over.”

  Zahul pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, then pressed the button, “Yahka, sha can tell from context. Over.”

  “Ah, see but sha just did it! Which means sha see my point, agh-” Yahka trailed off, letting go of the button, unsure what to say next.

  His own wandpad crackled back as Zahul impatiently interrupted him, “Sha just didn’t say over! Sha just did not say over, which proves my point! Over!” He barked into his pipboy, his wrist held to his face, making sure to say ‘over’ just to rub it in Yahka’s face.

  It crackled right back at him, loudly, “Is because I wasn’t done talkin’ to sha! Over!”

  “Then keep it short and simple! Cannae be wastin’ time, we’re on an op here, Yahka! Over!”

  Crackle, “Cap’n, just making sure ye know how ta mark the target, over.”

  Must the snaga embarrass him in front of the Durban like this? “Yes, yes, I know!” He was pretty sure. Pretty sure. Pretty sure it was dead simple anyway; how hard could it be?

  Crackle, “Aye, then standin’ by ta unleash hell on sha command. Over.”

  Zahul had to smile at that one, he managed to watch that one in a communal theater one long late rote when he was parked over in McMurdo.

  “Aye, over.” He nodded at Raigo.

  Raigo nodded. He would snipe with his good old relic high bore. Semi-Automatic. He was a sniper too, but he would hardly qualify himself as the best. He knew he wasn’t good enough for bolt action, but given some space and some time, and he’ll find his mark. His junk had a gyro-stabilized firing platform too; they were not hard to make. When it came to gyro-stabilization, Reath’s grasp did all the work.

  An amphibious invasion is the most difficult type of military scenario known in the long history of Reath. Kroozers may have might in the open seas, but against the solidity of artillery fortifications on good hard ground, they were pretty much sitting ducks. Indeed even something as simple as a storm, a wind from the Gods- a Kamikaze, could repel the invasion of the greatest Horde of the Godlikes, which took over the largest swath of Reathean land ever, stretching from the Frozen Wastes to the furthest eastern tip of the entire Jhiryan landmass, all the way down to the Lost Lands of both the Black and Green paths. Just not far east enough to take one last chain of great islands. Even in the Lost Age, just about all the successful amphibious invasions had only ever occurred during their Great War to End All Wars, the second one that is, the most epic win being the one that the Godlikes called ‘Operation Overlord’.

  This amphibious invasion was not nearly so epic. The defendants had no idea that they were even under attack, snoozing away, for it was their children that instigated this whole mess. Over a music festival!

  Zahul, Melloh, Zholl, and Zhon pulled on their breathing apparatuses, hoping that the oxygen tanks on their backs would not be shot, and leaned off from the railing to dive backwards into the murk.

  With the fins they were wearing – no need to transmog – they kick dived deep into the murky waters, after taking deep heaving breaths of air as they used concentrated berserker rage to use more of the oxygen to swim faster, seeing red as they tunneled through the littoral, to emerge at their attack point.

  Zahul turned to his sons and his first mate and put a finger to his lips. But they knew the drill. Don’t get made.

  Forming a squad column, they snaked along the side of the wall of a warelug. Zahul was on point. Melloh knew the drill, followed closely, and covered Zahul’s flank angles with his automatic shotgun, not even needing to look to sense where Zahul was sweeping his sights. They had done this so many times all along the mountains of the Red Path and up in the Tunedic Archipelago and Vyredia, liberating and dipping mutants in their path. Bad times.

  Zholl and Zhon, having lived their entire lives in peace, had no clue what the skai they were doing, so they just followed Melloh’s lead and kept their backs to the wall. Zahul leaned around the corner.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A fool orc was guarding the back exit smoking a blunt. At this ungodly hour?

  Why would they need twenty-four-hour guard for a stupid warelug- ah, doesn’t matter.

  Although Zahul had drawn up the entire battle plan, he had put himself in this attack position for a totally different reason. Shortly after the glob razza, and his deepest failure, he and Gnosta regrouped at the Chief’s lug to find the kids.

  It had been a few more hours, and they were well into the next rote by then and to summarize what happened there, Kalulah was off visiting relatives in Melchior- so Deyandra and Zhon snuck into Kalulah’s room, and did the zug-zug a bunch. She had never even managed to pop the molly in the chaos, so she split it with Zhon and they had a grand old time. It was certainly one way of dealing with trauma, for sure.

  Speaking of Lawrah, the troll regeneration, got her back up on her feet just enough to have some truly gentle and wonderfully passionate lovemaking with Zholl, who had saved her sorry orc ass from the rogue trader child kidnapper. Zholl of course was now all about the soft touches and loving gazes, and the “Lawrah, are you okay? Are you okay, Lawrah?” inquiries of current performance, because she had, after all, been shot by three arrows, had an eye gouged by one of them, and also been shot with a moon sugar bullet by a near-mythic relic rifle, that according to legend, should take you down in one shot no matter where it hit you, even somewhere that should be a non-crucial extremity like the foot.

  If she wasn’t pregnant from their little tryst in the psytrance temple, she certainly was now, because she practically demanded that Zholl stay in this time, even though he was thinking- you know what, now that I know that this will work, I really do want to pull out now. But Zholl, lacking self-discipline, ended up complying. It just felt too good. He had no idea it could be so much better if you slowed the skai down.

  Zhak just morosely buried his face in his hands in the living room, upset that he had been torn away from his lovely Gruker by his gezzno homophobic Dad, and that because of that his stupid gezzno het brothers got to have all the fun with his stupid gezzno het sister’s best friend. He wondered how Githarie was going to feel about Zholl and Lawrah going official, because he could easily read the signs. Plus the drug dealer zug. He made sure to vacuum up the incriminating stray racks Dey had left for the Lions and Law, casually strewn on the table. Which was consolation. But still. Gezzno hets. And they were already in enough trouble!

  Thankfully they were all well and done, not taking too long for they were already pretty spent in battle, when the parents busted back in.

  Lawrah and Deyandra immediately went to the side of Zahul who had collapsed on the floor in a grieving heap, to comfort him. When they realized that this meant that Githarie had been kidnapped, instead of providing comfort, they themselves both became shrieking, grieving banshees themselves and it hardly helped the poor captain as the three of them then began wailing and crying uncontrollably until Raigo smacked Lawrah on the back of the head and barked, “Law-Law! Get shaself together, gurl!” And that was enough to stir the rest of them back to cooking up some good old-fashioned cold plates of vengeance.

  There was no way Lawrah could help, she was still rekt, she knew that, and she dutifully and obediently went back to her room to promptly crash, because well, she just had round two.

  Of course, this was when Zhon insisted that he join the attack, and when the Chief impatiently tossed him an old backpack with some strap loops and a box of old grenades, which Zhon took with glee.

  Zhak, thinking a little too quickly with his second foray into a truly debilitatingly addictive substance, rapid fire explained to Zahul then that if they could trace back to exactly which transaction on the ethereal chain was made to pay for Githarie’s capture, then they could trace the receiver nodes other transactions – all perfectly clear on the permissionless and decentralized ledger, fully transparent for all to see – then maybe they could use the data from tracing those transactions to figure out where Githarie is!

  Geshzugas! That’s why I love sha my boi, Zhakkathan! The lifting hope made Zahul forget all about how suspicious he was of Zhak’s unusually quick cadence of speech.

  Zhak was as much a detective as a professor, as bak gwa [八卦] and nosy as Kullmang Yep sometimes, and so he knew exactly that it was Tcha-wunge Lungh’s dad, Aker-wunge Lungh, who handled all the transactions for the Hyenas. Surely those connected to the rogue traders, which we know to be Drizzit and Vyerna Du Pont. And they did. It wasn’t hard to figure out. The little hacker would casually phish some meth head orcs to pose as the Hyena’s customers, through which he would then ask for fronts that he would never pay back, leaving it to his poor owned to deal with, then he would sell the product right back to the Hyenas with his other accounts for ethers. What a little Mastermind.

  Simple. All Zahul had to do was beat the address out of Aker-wungh, send it back to Zhak on the pipboi, and then they were off to the race to catch Githarie before those foul elves did… well, Zahul wasn’t sure what they wanted with her.

  Returning now, to the assault, here was Zahul wondering how on Reath he was here watching this San Martin orc, guarding Aker-wungh’s very own warelug, smoke a blunt with old Nastya in his hands, when he should have been still asleep. He cursed this whole gezzno nuk-nuk rotation. He still couldn’t believe Githarie was gone. He was still in denial. He wanted to believe she was snuggled safe back at the Chief’s home with Lawrah, the zugs providing each other comfort and company.

  No more fantasizing about what isn’t real, Zahul. Prove yourself worthy to call yourself Dolphin’s Da. Find this skaihead Aker and show him the wrath of Thraxes. He will spill those runes, or Zahul will wagh out on him. He’d probably wagh out on him anyway.

  Zahul was still lost in vengeful thought when a crackle of gunfire, and then another few blasts of returning gunfire, noise polluted the serene early rotation.

  Ai-sha, some other team had been made. But bluntboi was so stoned he thought it was just more of the glob razza waghing, so instead, looked just shy of the sun, so it wouldn’t burn holes in his corneas, tilted his head up and took a long drag. Ah, orcan, this job was so easy.

  Wow.

  A village raid qualified as a stressful enough situation for the ‘shas’ to start popping up in the Chief’s speech.

  ‘Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s not going to happen.’

  His lineage could, after all, be traced to Godlikes of a Lost Land once known as Brazil.

  Maybe a Ménage à Trois might not be as bad as the alternative. But as a restaurant name, for a future Princess, and the other lover of a Prince, to meet? Terrible.

  They assumed meth. They did not assume the stuff that meth was made with, and this misjudgement would cause quite some commotion. That was putting it lightly.

  But with the assistance of a depraved sildenafil addiction, not to mention the polysubstances that Yahka combined that sildefanil citrate with. Get it together, Yahka, sha dirty orc.

  Yahka generally had the thing to tap into the various orcan dating spells, and sometimes, when Yahka was in the mood, Grindr, which had operated flawlessly, even for over four hundred revolutions because, well, gay bois don’t miss. Yahka cursed that all he had was a command line terminal, he knew back in the Lost Age he could instantly get pictures, so he knew what he’d be getting into, but now all he had were mostly words to feed his imagination, as very few arcane wandpads had undamaged lenses or sensors. Sometimes these blind dates led to sore disappointments, other times extremely fortuitous encounters that Yahka would cherish for the rest of his rotes. Indeed, the dearth of superficial judgment often led to proportionately more fulfilling matches than the Godlikes experienced, when it came to dating apps. Regrettable hookups still happened, of course. The nature of the orcan had never changed.

  Power, Volume Up, and Volume Down. Since it was very difficult to get digital audio, the Volume buttons were repurposed for general user interface usage.

  This argument over walkie-talkie protocol just refused to die, even after four hundred revolutions.

  ‘What we do in life, echoes in eternity.’

  Doing a double feature, playing the sequel right afterwards. Zahul did not think the sequel was as good as the original.

  An original Barrett XM109.

  Though the saying remained, they had forgotten what ducks were.

  Known in the Lost Age as the Mongolians.

  Hokkaido, Kyushu, Honshu, and Shikoku, among many others, the Islands home to the Godlikes known as the Japanese.

  An orcan copy of a Godlike design- the Armsel Striker Street Sweeper.

  She was aware of how careless the Thraxes twins were after a gurl’s chat with Lawrah after Law woke up, and after a reviving bump or so at Dey’s insistence of course. And so, Dey made sure to observe when Zhon was getting too excited and to finish him off with a blowie, which she was pretty good at.

  And yes, it meant that Zhon, with all the grenades strapped to Lawrah’s old backpack, was still rolling a little bit during the assault.

  Not to mention the revivifying bump with Dey.

  Considering both their injuries, it was all they could muster.

  He still had a deep gash on his arm and fractures in his third to eighth vertebrae. He could scarcely believe he could still hold a plank, much less make love. And while his own troll regeneration had mostly cleared out the internal bleeding in his lower intestine, he could barely rub pelvises without seizing in agony. But with typical androus machismo, he gritted his tusks through it and levered himself backwards so that Lawrah’s abdomen would not touch his, which, in all fairness, put him at a much better angle, much to Lawrah’s delight.

  An Arctic Warfare Precision Magnum.

  Not to mention that, when it came down to it, Lawrah was far more dominating and he the more submissive. Lawrah got her way as the only child. Zholl’s attempts at performing the alpha belied the fact that he was quite used to getting his ass kicked by Zahul.

  Trauma bonding.

  Although Dey wasn’t kidding, this stuff was ghash! But now the crash was awful. And so…

  …waste not, want not. That was the orcan way.

  ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’

  Really convenient for quick exposition to get us back to the action.

  They would wagh out at the accusation that they did not pay for a pickup they didn’t pick up, and then the Hyenas would wagh out in response. This never ended well. The smart ones just coughed up the dough even if they didn’t smoke a crumb of that ice.

  Too far removed from the violence he had caused, Zhak just never thought about the consequences of his actions. This concerningly nefarious kleptomaniacal streak in our otherwise good boi Zhak was just part of his core personality. He had no lurking Mr. Robots. It was another sibling who was developing a dangerous dissociative identity, one that would not fully manifest until much later.

  But you do, scryer. You know the secret.

  The proxy for his rage was misdirected. What did Aker have to do with Githarie’s capture? Well, Zahul thought he got a little fee for the transaction for arranging the trade, but of course, we know no such transaction existed. The payment was death, for poor Cool Hand Ani.