BUGS

by Steve Corbett

The Grand mistress of the order, Mira the elder, was reading some of the reports that crossed her desk with increasing frequency these days. The aged, blond Lioness shook her head in bemused wonder. The things these Humans came up with! Why, this paper claimed that it was possible to fly, using only the power of hot air! She chuckled; it had to be serious. She had already learned that if the humans claimed it could be done, they invariably meant it, and had an unnerving way of being able to prove it.

She set the paper aside, and took an appreciative sip from her coffee mug. She then leaned back, absently brushing a lock of tawny mane out of her eyes; The hair graying with her age. She closed her eyes in pleasure, feeling the warm rush from the drink. That too had been a human innovation; coffee and chocolate had been unknown in her world before the humans had been brought here accidentally by an inexperienced apprentice, nearly a year ago.

She opened her eyes slowly, smiling at the ceiling. Her religious order enshrined information and the advance of both civilization and technology- before the "furries" had come, an odd way to think of themselves, she thought, for beings who have no fur! - technology had proceeded only with painful slowness; or not at all for centuries. Now, they had so much information to sort from the humans in their eagerness to share that it took the efforts of a small army of junior acolytes and underpriests to try valiantly to catalog it all!

The information the humans were willing to share more than paid for their upkeep, to her way of thinking. The order fed, clothed and lodged the "fans" free of charge; and although many did not work, and were an occasional pain for the various stunts they pulled, the rest more than made up for it by their efforts. The worst of them weren’t much of a problem-the other fans tended to police their own.

The information the humans provided promised to make life better for all the Mother's children of the world. She felt it would work. She could feel it.

She was still enjoying the glow of accomplishment when a third rank priest burst into her chambers and blurted out the dreaded news.

Nick, gunny and Larry were sitting around a conference room with some fetching young female underpriestesses when they got the word. Another priestess entered the room. " I'm sorry to bother you", the robed wolf said, quietly. "But a Chasm Scorpion has left the great cleft, and its heading for the city."

Nick and the other humans looked at her in puzzlement. The young furry girls; a cat, a gazelle, and a raccoon, reacted as if a severed head had just been tossed on the table.

"NO!" "IT CAN'T BE!?" "OH DAMN, NOT AGAIN!" "WHAT??!!"

Everyone tried to talk at once, at the top of their lungs; the result was that nobody could be heard clearly.

The old ex marine sitting at the table had enough. Gunny's powerful bellow had been honed to guttural perfection in the rice paddies of Vietnam. He managed to be heard over the terrified feminine shrieks and confused shouts of his male friends.

"WHAT THE HELL IS A CHASM SCORPION!?"

The girls, and even Nick and Larry, turned in shock to stare at him. His voice was incredibly loud and powerful, and it got attention.

It turned out, when the girls could speak again, that one of the types of monsters created during the Mage War, a thousand years before, were giant insects and arachnids. Of all of these, the most feared were the giant black scorpions of the Great Cleft.

An enormous canyon. Dark and foul, and no one living knew how deep. In these dank, terrible places dwelt immense monsters out of nightmare.

Jet black, big as a greyhound bus; they were so resistant to magic that they were almost impossible to kill.

With armor as magically hard as iron, conventional weapons such as swords and even catapults and ballistae were useless. Fire did not affect them. They could drown, but would not willingly enter water. They had no natural enemies but one another.

It was accepted wisdom to simply get out of their way, since they only left the cleft when they were so huge that they could no longer find food enough to still their savage hunger. It also meant that they had reached the point of diminishing return. They couldn't find enough food to stay alive, and what they ate they burned up faster than it could be replaced; so they slowly starved to death.

Only their magically augmented metabolism kept them moving until death stilled them forever.

But until then, they tended to devastate the entire countryside as they crept along, dying on their armored feet. And it often took years to rebuild after they were gone.

"And so you see Gunny," The wolf girl continued sadly, "We must evacuate the city while we can, so that we may live to rebuild." Gunny's face had hardened as she spoke, and her yellow eyes became concerned as she saw his expression. She began to play nervously with a lock of long auburn hair as she looked to the other humans. Nick and Larry were also hard faced.

"Retreat?" Gunny's voice was surprisingly mild. He might have been commenting on the weather. His friends nodded in grim silence. Knowing one another for so long, it required no discussion to reach a consensus of opinion.

The older human continued, cold blue eyes staring into the distance. "Retreat my ass."

He looked back at her, and even though she was of carnivore stock herself, she shuddered to return his cold stare. "Call the grand mistress sweetheart, we're goin' on a bug hunt."

The three humans met with Mira at the archive room. Gunny had a list in hand. She looked down at him worriedly. The lioness was a full head taller than any of the humans, but at the moment, one had the impression that they were the most dangerous predators in the room, If only due to their almost palpable intensity of purpose.

The mirror was already up and running, and had been tuned to the Deadworld. This parallel of Earth had had all life on it killed a few years ago by a solar flare; thus the humans tended to loot it of equipment, weapons, and books without compunction.

Strictly speaking, since it was a dead world, the order's laws about forbidding theft didn't apply. It still tended to be a little unnerving, though, how quickly the humans came up with new applications for the mirror, which the people who had had it for over three thousand years had never thought of!

Gunny handed the list to Nick, who looked it over for anything that he might have missed, then Scott did the same. He spoke. "Mira, its wrong to have to run away from this overgrown cockroach. I've had a look at it with the mirror, and although its pretty damn big, I believe we can kill it."

She looked at him, and at the magical mirror. The order's most important artifact, it was probably the most powerful magic device on her entire world. It was this item that had inadvertently abducted the Humans and their "hotel" almost a year ago. It was unimpressive to look at; a yard tall, and enclosed in a simple brass frame, it might have served in any clothier's shop or bedroom. A line of small brass hemispheres lined one side. It was these hemispheres that made it so tricky to use. A junior acolyte had passed his hand over the wrong one, and accidentally brought the humans to this world. He had paid the price for this, but the deed was done, and irrevocable.

The mirror could bring things to the viewer; it could not send things back. Its power to do so had no known limits, and before the existence of these visitors from another world, no one had been eager to experiment and find out if a limit existed.

She spoke.

"Now Gunny, you know that this device takes life energy when it brings something across," She flicked an ear, a nervous habit. "How were you planning on bringing a lot of weapons over without killing yourself, or someone else?"

She cocked a quizzical eyebrow, and gently tapped him on the chest with one large claw. "I won't allow you to harm yourself, or any of my clergy with this scheme, no matter how good you think this idea is!" Nick stepped forward before Gunny could reply. His famous temper was not what the situation required. "Mira, I had an idea, and we've already cleared it with the mirror- watch this!"

Nick stepped up to the mirror. She saw that he held a pigeon in his hand. He concentrated a moment, and an armory appeared in the glass. Nick used one hand to guide the viewpoint to a crate. Stenciling on its olive drab side read "Machine gun, M2, Cal..50".

He passed the pigeon over the "acquire" ball. The image shimmered, and the crate materialized in the room. He held up the pigeon. It was dead. There was no visible sign of what had killed it, but its life energy was gone.

Nick had lost none of his own.

Mira's eyes widened in astonishment. "How did you do that!?" All reservations were forgotten in the wonder over his cleverness.

Nick smiled and explained. "You said that it took life energy to bring things over, so I had an idea, and since the mirror can answer questions about itself, I asked if it had to be the operator's life energy. It said it only had to be life energy, not necessarily that of the operator. So, I held a pigeon over the ball, and it worked!" He tossed the dead bird into a small box on the floor. "You can even build a reservoir of energy against future use, by just charging the thing up."

The lioness shook her head in wonder. "I give up, youngster!" She smiled, in dazed wonder. "You humans really are amazing!"

Gunny had been waiting patiently. Now he coughed for attention. "If this little meeting of the 'lets admire Nick' society is over, I'd like to discuss my list now?"

Everyone crowded around him, "First up is what we call a Tank.- An M-1 Abrams to be precise. Then a battery of what we call 105 millimeter howitzers...."

Nick and Scott sighed, and went out to bring in the cages full of pigeons they'd caught in the marketplace and gardens with box traps. If this worked well, there would be some real progress in thinning the local population of the annoying little bastards.

There seemed to be a universal constant in that no one liked pigeons. If anything, the locals seemed to appreciate that the bird shit problem would likely be solved, or at least alleviated a bit.

It was 3 days later, and a tent had been set up some ten miles from the city. Gunny was in fatigues, bent over a folding table and checking a map. Nick entered through the flap door.

Gunny eyed him with mild irritation. Nick was in woodland cammies that matched his own, but had flatly refused to cut his shoulder length hair, or shave off his small, neatly trimmed VanDyke chinbeard.

His hair was tied in a pony tail that hung down his back. Of course, his battered, wide brimmed black felt hat and knee-high, steel toed motorcycle boots weren't exactly regulation either, but as he'd pointed out, he wasn't in the marines, so he felt free to wear what he goddamn well pleased.

It was a relatively minor point of contention, and as Gunny respected Nick for his capabilities, he didn't push it.

Old habits die hard. As an ex-marine in a combat situation, Gunny reflexively tried to enforce corps grooming and uniform standards. He freely admitted it was a bad habit, and tried to control it. After all, Nick was one of the few non veteran fans Gunny trusted to watch his back in a dangerous situation.

Besides, Nick had a point. He wasn't a marine, he was a biker.

The biker artist strolled to the table and looked at the map. Gunny had circled a meadow off of the main road about a mile from their current location.

"I've got my stuff set up, Gunny. We can begin any time." The older man straightened, wiping the sweat from his shorn scalp with one hand, holding his forage cap with the other. He habitually wore his own white hair in the regulation buzz cut he'd had most of his life.

"Okay Nick. Lets have it, What is this plan of yours?"

The younger man pointed at the road on the map. "The critter will come down the road here- we have scouts dogging him, and the bastard hasn't deviated more than a few hundred yards off it for the last week. If he does leave, he comes right back within an hour or two. He's beelining straight toward us."

The older man nodded thoughtfully. "He's following the spoor of live traffic on the road, because it means lots of food when he gets to the end of the trail." Nick nodded, "Exactly. Its reasonable to expect him to keep on doing it till he hits the city." He straightened, continued. "I had an ancestor, a distant relative, who was a professional big game hunter. He wrote some books on Tiger hunting, and I'm going to use one of his techniques to bait our boy into an ambush."

Gunny smiled, "And when he takes the bait, we serve him up a little snack." He chuckled, "Reminds me of the 'nam, when we used to bait Charlie into the open to pound 'em."

Nick chuckled as well. "Yeah, well, Charlie wasn't 70 feet long, and built like a damn ironclad either!" The ex marine's smile turned feral. " Give me my shot, boy, and we'll find out if he's as tough as he looks!"

The bushwhack was laid out. The meadow chosen was a shallow oval in the ground about a quarter mile long, and about half that wide. Some of the People who had come over during the transfer were active duty Marines. Gunny had grabbed them immediately, and pressed them as Gun crews for his five 105mm howitzers.

These men had been rounded out with several of the more competent fans and furry local city guard who showed an ability to follow instructions. The artillery had full crews, so Gunny had turned to the problem of crewing the M-1s.

In the end only one of the fans had had any experience with such armored vehicles. Scott had been an Abrams driver in Desert Storm, and knew the tank inside and out. Several fans, such as Nick, knew enough to round out the single Tank's complement, but with only a few days to train, Gunny had to give up on the idea of using the other three. The decision was made to limit the Abram's use to static firing as a big pillbox, with room to back out and draw the monster off if something went wrong.

This was not a popular decision. Scott, the designated commander, was especially opposed to it, but the fact of such poor familiarity by the rest of his crew caused him to reluctantly agree. It simply couldn't be helped.

The plan was finalized. The big guns were ranged in a rough semi circle around the back end of the meadow. Some fast earthworks were thrown up with the aid of a bulldozer and several backhoes thoughtfully brought along by Larry and his little squad of engineers.

A carefully cleared aisle lead into the field off of the road. A pair of animal oxen were staked out in the middle, and a blood trail was planned to lead from the road to the field and its currently placid bait. Both had promptly flopped down in the knee-high grass, and begun contentedly munching the big pile of alfalfa fodder set for them.

The M-1 was set in the middle of the circle of guns, and rifle pits were dug between the widely spaced artillery positions. Open topped bunkers were dug to function as magazines for the shells, and tents were pitched a safe distance away behind barricades of razor wire. Pickets were set to ward off any locals still around, and to catch looters who might have gotten wind of potential easy pickings.

All of these preparations took most of a day, and then the word came up. The quarry was still en route, and expected to arrive about 10 or so the next morning.

Dinner around the fire at the command post was subdued; most of the people around the fire had gone for a look at the beast that was moving inexorably down that road. It was like something out of your worst childhood nightmares.

It was Immense. Black as a demon out of Hell, and silent in its relentless advance. Intellectually, they had faith in the weapons they'd brought, but too many bad horror movies had left nasty, nagging doubts in the back of all of their minds.

And one way or the other, they'd know tomorrow if what they'd brought was good enough to stop it.

Dawn came bright and too damn early. Nick crawled out of his sleeping bag and stretched carefully. He put on his pants and boots, then strapped on his revolver, and trotted over to the command tent. He nodded at the sentry, a pretty leopardess with long auburn hair done up in a single thick braid. She winked at him as he went inside. It was nice to see the locals had such confidence in their human wards. Nick hoped to himself that it wasn’t misplaced.

Gunny was already up, shaved, clear eyed and chatting on the radio with the scouts in contact with the scorpion. Boyce had set up an efficient radio command net at the city, using the mirror and several temporary microwave relay towers to coordinate efforts. The older man signed off, and turned to the bleary looking younger man. Grinning, he offered a cup of coffee. Nick smiled,waved him off, and headed for the cooler against the wall. Fishing out a can of "Jolt", he popped the tab and swigged deep.

The biker coughed a few times as the burn hit his throat, then sighed appreciatively as the caffeine abruptly cut the fog.

He munched a granola bar, as Gunny filled him in. “The bastard is about a half day down the road, and moving steadily toward us." Gunny swallowed coffee, then continued. "He stops when it gets cold, but he's still coming." Nick nodded thoughtfully. He'd had a background in amateur entomology and other life sciences back home, and knew more about insects and arachnids than anyone else available for the current mission. He spoke.

"Its a little odd that he doesn’t move at night like normal ones, but its magic, so presumably the rules are different. Just make sure there isn't anyone in the positions till he passes them- I don't know if he can smell live prey, but the little scorps are really sensitive to vibration, both in the air, and through the ground. I don't want him to get curious and distracted from the bait."

Gunny nodded, refilling his cup. Larry's cooks were models of efficiency, and the coffee, rolls, granola bars, and cold cut sandwiches were in never ending supply regardless of the hour of the day. That guy was a whiz at logistics; if it had been up to either Nick or Gunny, the food would have probably been MREs, cans of soda, and crackers. That wouldn't have even fazed Nick, who tended to ignore what he was eating when something had his attention, but no one was complaining.

Nick wondered idly where Larry had found all those furry cooks, then gave it up. They'd probably come out of the slave markets. It didn't really matter, since their lives working under Larry were without doubt better than they would be under a local master. He had no personal problem with the local customs on animate property.

He'd forbidden Merika, the civet slave girl he'd bought himself from coming on this run. She had been a street girl and petty thief who'd been caught.

She'd been lucky. Most thieves were hanged at the city gates. Instead, she had been sold as a slave.

She was also damn feisty. The shouting match over her having to stay behind had been loud enough to get complaints from down the hallway in his apartment block. She was very protective of Nick, who had been the first to ever treat her like a person. He couldn't free her either.

He knew she'd feel that he was telling her he didn't want her by doing so, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she would lose the will to live if that happened. He would never just toss her out, but she had been orphaned young, and as his slave, she felt a sense of belonging and security for the first time in her life. He couldn't be so cruel as to free her.

And there was the matter of her status as a penal slave to consider. Freeing her was a major crime in itself- the assumption being that she’d become a thief again.

The magistrates would shit if Nick let her go to dip into their pouches again.

So he kept her.

He finished his jolt, and tossed the can into the fire pit as he headed to the privies. Strict orders had been issued on all materials likely to leave an odor. The camp might be a long way from the chosen ambush site, but there was no point taking chances.

It was noon, and the scorpion was coming.

Nick had taken the ox and lead it to the road bed. A last check by radio, and he got ready to bait the trap.

The scorp was in sight, over two miles away down the flat, open road.

He took out his Bowie knife, and with a quick slash, opened a deep gash in the oxen's neck. The big bull pulled back, rolling its eyes in startled pain. It lowed reproachfully but obeyed, as he lead it back toward its harness mate; still staked out in the field.

Nick didn't like doing this part of the job, but was quite ruthless enough to get it done. He made sure plenty of blood splashed the dust as he lead the animal back to the center of the field.

Nick staked the bull back to where it had been before. The other ox smelled the blood, and began to low nervously as well, as he had known full well that it would. Nick hotfooted it out of the field. So far, everything was going according to plan.

Of course, since it had been kept deliberately simple, there wasn't much to actually go wrong.

Nick joined a Badger at the edge of the field; the young male was a member of the city guard, and had more or less attached himself to the blond biker. He didn't mind, since his favorite furry type were badgers. Besides, the kid was useful and very bright.

They moved to their hide. Gunny dropped into the trench with them a moment later, binoculars in hand. From here they had a perfect view, and a short jog to their stations in the firing line when the scorp hopefully took the bait.

They didn't wait long. Within fifteen minutes, the monster came up on the split in the road.

This was it, the moment of truth. There were over two hundred personnel in this mission; furries and human alike.

The creature was immense, like something out of a horror movie of the 1950s. Unlike those low budget B flicks, however, this thing was terrifyingly real. An obsidian giant, on ten massive legs, with a wrecking ball for a tail, and a sword blade of a stinger protruding from it. Its claws twitched occasionally, big enough to snip a man in half, edges lined with ugly serrated teeth. Its palps flexed, saliva glistening on the cruel looking jaws. Nick shuddered. He knew how scorpions fed. The jaws crushing their prey, injecting digestive juices to liquefy the insides before sucking and chewing the body down. It would be a uniquely hideous way to die for anyone who was unlucky enough to be caught, since scorpions didn't care if their meal was still alive when they ate it.

He came out of the daydream with a snap.

The initial estimate had been off, he saw. This thing was considerably larger than a bus. It was closer to a semi tractor and a pair of trailers in length. Maybe 100, maybe 120 feet long. The end joint of the pincers were a good 20 feet long by themselves.

It stopped when it found the blood trail. It sat, doing nothing obvious for at least five minutes. Gunny hissed loudly in Nick's ear. "What the hell is that damn thing doing?!" Nick turned his head slowly to look at his friend, and deliberately wiped out his ear with a finger. He shook his head silently in answer.

The monster sat motionless another moment, then its posterior raised up from the ground. A sphincter, not visible before, spasmed, and began to deposit a pile of literally steaming lumps reminiscent of basketball sized charcoal briquettes on the road.

Most of the team of hunters watching sat with their jaws open, some smirked, or frantically covered their mouths as they convulsed with mirth in the sudden release of tension. Gunny turned to look accusingly at Nick again. The biker muttered in his best deadpan. "Don't look at me man, I ain’t got a pooper scooper that big!"

Finished offloading ballast, the scorp set off rapidly on the blood trail with satisfaction, in anticipation of an imminent meal. With the arrogance of a pagan god striding upon the Earth, it completely ignored the iron and oil smell of the massed weapons as it passed them; the artificial scent of nonliving materials beneath its notice.

Gunny gave the order by radio. The entire team, 200 strong, got up from their hides, and sprinted silently to their gunnery stations. Most had a miscellany of rifles and machine guns; everything from bolt action Mausers and Enfields to .50 caliber M2 Brownings. One crazy bastard had even transported his prized brass Napoleon muzzle-loading cannon all the way out here.

Gunny had let him do it.

Who knows? it might even be good for something. And it was easier than arguing with him about it.

Nick, Scott and Brock climbed quietly into the Tank, silently letting down the hatches to button up for combat. Brock powered up the gunner's computer, and Nick slid a sabot round into the breach of the 120mm gun. Scott slid into the Commander's position.

He'd spent an intense couple of days teaching the two others how to do their respective jobs. Brock had been in the Navy, so many of the terms and procedures had been familiar to him. Nick had never served, but had spent so much time with military and ex-military fans that he'd picked it up easily enough.

The only bone of contention had been naming their tank. Since it would also constitute their call sign, Gunny had wanted them to use something short and simple. Nick had other ideas, and had proposed ‘Jolly Roger’ .

In the end, after the shouting had died down, Nick had taken a brush and paint and gleefully added a skull and crossed bones to the turret. Scott had laughed out loud at seeing it, but Brock, not as knowlegable on japanese anime had to be clued in about the specific design Nick had used. It was taken from Captain Harlock, the space pirate. Scott had asked him why he didn’t just call the tank ‘Arcadia’?

Nick had shrugged nonchalantly and said that would have really set Gunny off. Besides, he liked ‘Jolly Roger’ better.

He'd wound up as loader simply because he weighed about 20 pounds more than Brock, and was considerably stronger. Shells for the Rhienmetall 120mm gun were quite heavy, and speed in reloading might be vital.

They checked their stations again, and reported in.

Boyce received reports at the city, called in by handheld Motorola radios. His specialty in the navy had been fire control and communications coordination on Bunker Hill class guided missile cruisers. He had thrown himself into preparations with a will, and assembled an excellent staff of human fans and underclergy to handle the task. He looked up from the plot board; an IMac running off of one of the magic spinning wheel electrical generators that Larry had assembled shortly after The Event.

A simple concept, it was a steel flywheel that spun at high RPMs due to a spell; the shaft of which turned a generator to produce suitable current. Larry admitted that he'd swiped the idea from a Larry Niven novel.

All green, and Boyce gave clearance to fire.

Brock acquired their target, and toggled the safety off. By prearranged agreement, the Abrams would light off the first round, its shot the signal for all guns to let the monster have it.

Outside the tank, Gunny checked with all other gun crews. All green, even Mike had checked in on the unit push to indicate his black powder cannon was loaded, primed and ready to fire. The senior veteran cleared with central command. Gunny didn't bother to check with the riflemen; they had better all be ready to do their jobs and pop caps, or it was just too bad.

Down range, the scorp had eagerly grabbed the first ox, killing it with a stinger driven into the ribs . It was gleefully grabbing the second as the signal came back for go.

The range was virtually point blank, all tubes in the artillery battery were being aimed over open sights for direct fire.

Gunny had taken no chances, all were loaded with HEAP.

Which stands for High Explosive, Armor Piercing.

In the tank, Scott was manning the radio. Then the order came, Boyce's clear baritone on the channel.

“Jolly Roger, you are clear to fire."

Scott grinned, and gave the order. Brock triggered the main gun.

The whole vehicle rocked on its treads with the rending crash. The blast and shock wave from the high velocity round momentarily stunned everyone outside, even with the protection of the berm, then the artillery lit off in one ragged volley.

The first shot had been aimed at the scorpion's hind end. With its tail raised and its armor overlapping in the wrong direction, even its tough, iron-hard hide was no match for a gun made to defeat the heaviest land based armor on earth at 10 times the distance.

The discarding sabot had been made to pierce hardened steel a foot thick at half a mile or more. The long depleted uranium dart punched the length of the creature's body before it found the thick armor of its head from the inside. The AP dart was unimpressed. It blew the scorpions head out in a long spray of brains and blood. The monster might arguably have been dead from the single shot, but the fusillade of shell and rifle fire that followed made it a moot point.

The scorpions twitching body was ripped apart by the salvo. Goo and organs sprayed out from the multiple impacts. A disembodied pincer, sheered free by a 105 shell hit, sailed a hundred yards to land bouncing on the grass.

Huge multijointed legs fell away from the body, severed by the blasts of high explosive shot. Pressure from the concussions contorted the thing's torso. Escaping gas made obscene sucking and gurgling noises which continued long after the scorpion quit moving. Bullets screamed and ricocheted from the chitin, tearing up the ground around the target zone like God’s own plow.

Gunny called on the radio for a cease fire.

He needn't have bothered. The same thought had occurred to everyone else at the same time. An eerie silence fell over the meadow, gasses from powder smoke and an incredible stench from the scorpion's body gagging the assembled gun crews.

Hatches clanged on the turret roof of Jolly Roger. Nick, Scott and Brock climbed up to stare at the immense, steaming and hideously reeking corpse strung out over the grassy meadow. Their ears still rang from the barrage.

Nick pulled off his tanker’s helmet and turned to his friends. "Damn," he said. "I hope they don't expect us to clean up this shit!"

The word went out, and Boyce sounded the all clear on the unit freq.

Many of the fans took no chances, too many horror movies fresh in their collective minds. They kept freshly reloaded weapons in hand as they approached the violently butchered carcass.

There was no need to worry. Even if by some twisted miracle the thing had still been alive, it would have had a royal bitch of a time doing anything to anybody.

All of its legs had been effectively amputated as the high explosive shot had blown up in its guts. Hydrodynamic shock had ripped out the connections where they had attached.

As if being abruptly legless were not enough, its whole back armor had peeled off in one long articulated sheet. The side tissues had separated to release it like some grotesque carpet of chitin. Body fluids had been mixed and internal organs pureed, and the whole foul mess flowing out to coat the grass in a gelatinous flood. It was most thoroughly and messily dead.

Tension drained slowly. It was as if everyone assembled expected something to go horribly wrong at the last minute. But this wasn't a hollywood movie, and in real life when the bad guys were shot, they stay dead. Groups of fans and furries began to poke at the corpse, milling in a kind of almost stunned sense of wonder and triumph.

They had slain the devil himself, and nothing had gone wrong. It took some time for it to sink in.

Boyce spread the word at the city.

Mira came out herself to see the results later in the day. And to direct the team of priests and priestesses stripped naked so as not to permanently stain their robes as they carefully used magically enhanced saws to cut the chitin into pieces.

The remains were loaded on wagons for the trip back to the city.

As she explained it, the chitin was an incredibly rare and valuable spell component. Useful for many purposes from the making of magic armor to weapons and in making potions to neutralize poisons. Offers were already coming in from mages who had holdings not far away. Mira felt that no more than half should be offered for sale. The rest would be saved for the order's use.

Nick had asked, in idle curiosity, how much it was worth. The answer staggered him.

Hell, gold was cheap compared to this stuff! Mira also informed him that he and the others were entitled to a fair share of the expected profit. It got him to thinking.

It was a week later.

Mira was again going through reports and enjoying her coffee. there was a knock at her door. She looked up. "Come in."

It was Nick. "Ah! my favorite monster hunter! come in, come in." Nick closed the door behind him. He grinned, a handful of papers in his hand. "You know, its funny you should mention that.."

A couple hours later, his proposal freshly stamped with the Grand Mistresses' own seal, Nick Colbert, freshly minted captain of the Monster Hunters of the city of the free city state of Taboc, strode out the courtyard into the late afternoon sun.

Gunny, Scott, Larry, and a dozen others met him impatiently. " Well, how'd it go?" Came the question from a dozen at the same time. Nick held up the new charter. "Gentlemen, we are in business!"

Larry chuckled in satisfaction. "Guess we can work up the capital now for my factories, huh?" Nick looked at him and grinned. " Once we get started, we might need more than you can build." He smiled slyly. " Hope you like overtime!"

Everyone laughed at the engineers good natured curse.

The End, for now.