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Dog Wars"Look Charlie, they're coming whether we like it or not, so get used to the idea. And no jokes about putting on the dog, okay?" "Sure, sure, Powerfist, don't get your water hot. You know what they say, every dog has his day, heh, heh, heh." Powerfist ground his teeth audibly then hit Charlie so hard his whiskers were driven into his cheek. "I told you, meat brain, no dog jokes!" Powerfist was the resident manager of 'Kill Crazy Incorporated', the most successful weapons dealer in the Union of Metallic States, better known as the UMS. Kill Crazy's motto was a splendid reflection of its business. "YOU WON'T NEED NO REFUNDS! ALL YO ENEMIES GONNA BE DEAD!" Powerfist walked over, jerked Charlie up off the floor and cuffed him alongside the head a couple times until he woke up. He screamed in Charlie's face. "Listen you dwarf-brain, gene-fry, pension stealing, mouse dick, lump of frog dirt, I told you no dog jokes. Has it escaped your nano-second attention span that we, that's everybody in the UMS, don't run things in this sector!" Charlie grunted something incomprehensible, spat out a tooth followed by a large quantity of blood. "Jeez, Power, take it easy. What's got into you? Was a time you was a real easy goin' guy." "Answer this one question, Charlie. Who runs things in this sector of the galaxy?" "The Caninites," Charlie muttered sullenly. "That's affirmative, the Caninites, and that, by God, is no dog joke. They want to do business with us! Their agent said a large order. When was the last time those people placed an order for anything less than a million credits?" "Never have Power, probably never will." "That's right, crud brain, and don't forget it. Now, listen up. We gotta have a plan. First thing they taught us at the Academy, you gotta have a plan, then you gotta be prepared to change that plan, else you don't get to kill nobody, then everybody loses." "Right, Boss, we gotta have a plan." Charlie didn't have that many teeth left that he wanted to risk another fist full of knuckles. "Uh, Boss, I ain't bein' a smart ass or nothin' but I don't get it! The Caninites are supposed to be peace mongers. They're the Dove-Dogs of the Western Arm." Powerfist peered at Charlie suspiciously to see if he was making another ethnic slur. He decided the question was serious. "You know, Charlie, it wouldn't hurt you none to read a book once in a while. Haven't you ever heard of Peace through Deterrence? Nail the Other Bastard before he Nails You? And what about, Carry a Big Stick and Kick the Crap Outta Everyone in Sight?" It was one of Powerfist's personal favorites. "Yeah, I heard those things Power," Charlie said, "but how you gonna have peace if no one gets killed first?" Powerfist Murdock was having a little trouble with that one himself. "Look, Charlie, I don't set policy, I ain't political. General John 'The Axe' Molder himself does that. He's the boss. When he says crap we don't ask where or how much, we squat and we grunt. I been given the word. What the Caninites want, the Caninites get. I sure as hell don't intend to ask how come a pack of peace lovin' dogs want to buy weapons and move into the kill zone. No way I'm gonna do that." "Okay, Power, what do you want me to do?" Total resignation. "First thing tomorrow morning you make the rounds of all the warehouses and be sure everything is ship shape. I want them buildings spit-shined so's you could lick milk off the floor. I want them folks to know we run a quality shop. You get chopped by a weapon from Kill Crazy, it's a clean, first class weapon. You get wounded, you ain't gonna go septic less it's Bio-Chem. That, of course is okay 'cause we meant for it to happen. Have the Techs put everything in display cases. And tell those number crunching wienies in finance to have all the price breakdowns available." Charlie suppressed a smile and murmured to himself. "I wonder if ole Power realizes he just made an ethnic boo boo." "We gonna have to wine and dine them, Power?" Charlie asked. "I don't know the answer to that. I mean, what do those folks do for kicks? Does anybody know?" Anxiety was eating away at Powerfist. He was just a simple retired ex-Colonel from the 18th Iron Force Marines. What he did know was that the Caninites were the true power brokers for a quarter of the galaxy. They owned or operated all or part of everything that made money for five thousand parsecs in every direction. But they didn't kill! Big time weird. If they had fighting that needed doin' they hired Mercs, of which there were plenty in the UMS. He turned away from Charlie and headed for his office. Charlie had a few thousand questions he wasn't going to get answered. "And Charlie, you tell those dope smokin', self abusing techies, if they screw up I am personally gonna come down there and rip their feet off and shove them up their collective fundament. After that I will kill them, dead! Make sure they believe it. That is all!" Powerfist had done very well at 'Involving and Motivating Your Men' at the Academy. Powerfist headed into his office like a turbo panzer in fast forward. "Lucille," he roared, "get me everything ever written about the Caninites. I want it yesterday!" ************** Goodchild Pomerantz tried one more time to reason with Peaceleader Dichsand. "August Peaceleader," he whined, "for a thousand years we kept our paws free of blood. When battles needed to be fought we used our superior intelligence. The Universe is full of people willing, even eager to kill someone else for whatever reason. Half the time it hasn't cost us a single credit. Our motto is simple and elegant. MAKE MONEY, NOT WAR "That was then, this is now," Dichsand barked. "Our problem is within the pack. A good part of our success as a people has been our ability to remain apart from, be a mystery to everyone else who inhabits this area of the Galaxy. For this reason we use intermediaries. We have always known before the fact if some lower life form meant to do violence against us. Our ships are bigger and faster, our shields more effective, our adepts able to read the intentions of evil doers..." "I know all this, Peace Leader..." "Be patient and listen, Pomerantz," Dichsand commanded. "I apologize, Your Decency." "Hmmm, hmmm, right. where was I,...Read the intentions of evil doers. The prevailing opinion held by the rest of the quadrant is that if one even thinks of attacking a Caninite, something really bad will happen. Our external political people maintain this perception. A thousand years of survival and constant expansion are proof that our philosophy is preeminent. Now the unthinkable has happened." The Peace Leader's long patrician snout drooped despondently. "I am sorry to trouble you with these questions, Your Ancientness," Pomerantz said. "You have given me a most exacting task. Much is at stake. I just want to be sure I don't make any mistakes. In the past we have always used the fixers, the pale, hairless ones. This will be the first contact with those people in the UMS. We've never seen them and they've never seen us. It is unprecedented." "Forget the past Pomerantz. I won't tell you again." Pomerantz crouched low and ducked his head between his paws at the growl in the Peace Leader's voice. "We have a disease in the body of the pack. It must be erased completely and forever." Nothing is forever, Pomerantz thought, not even you, Peace Leader. "May I know what this is all about, Your Worthiness?" "No, you may not. None of this may leave the kennel, nothing. You will be entering alien territory. If anything were to happen such that what you know fell into the paws of others, our mysteries would be breached. What I want you to do is meet with General Ridgebeck immediately. He will tell you what is needed. No more questions Pomerantz. Do your duty to your group, to your race, for all canine-kind." Hide your tail when they start yapping about all canine-kind, Pomerantz thought, because sure as taxes someone is going to mash it good. General Ridgebeck wasn't forthcoming. He gave Pomerantz a list of military supplies that filled thirty-one computer screens. "Pomerantz, you're a good pup. You just do as you're told and this will all work out. No more administrators making snide remarks about your being an omega sniffing around the top dog. You will go to Metallica in the UMS. You will travel first class, have your own A-Level robotics. You may cloak in stasis-field if you want, communicate through the robotics, it's up to you. I recommend at some time you go face to face. "You will meet a person at the space facilities called, General "The Axe" Mulder. Such quaint names. He's the Owner of Kill Crazy Inc. They are the number one weapons dealer to a hundred systems. He will fill this order. Work with him. Make a good impression. Be cool, don't lick yourself in public, they won't understand. Well, that's it. Don't screw up or you will truly understand the meaning of the tail wagging the dog. That is all." *************** Powerfist threw the book he was reading in the corner where it joined a dozen others that hadn't told him diddley squat. Some had the covers ripped off. The librarian wasn't going to like that. The sum total of all he learned was zip. It was ninety percent guess, twenty percent conjecture. "Well, you're riding thin air on this one, trooper." He sat down in his favorite chair and thought about what he knew. All of the fighting related to the Caninites occurred when they ran into some race or group that interfered with business. He knew a lot of Mercenaires who'd taken Dog Pay for a little dust up here and there. The money was up front, on time and never short. Every soldier's dream. Bonuses were paid if schedules were met or exceeded. And always, always, always, everything, all the arrangements were handled by intermediaries. Most of the time the intermediaries were Cthonians. "Weird! How did those guys get to be go-betweens to a thousand worlds. They stand upright for God's sake!" He rolled a cigar and lit it carefully. The damn thing made him sneeze so hard it almost blew his eyes through the back of his head. He dealt with those boneheads at least once a week. Grinning wimps, with their disgusting hairless bodies, always smiling. "Those weasels are trickier than a woman on the prowl and wouldn't give you the time of day if you supplied the clock." He called in every favor he could think of and learned nothing. The Cthonians weren't talking, not about the Caninites anyway. No amount of cash would loosen their tongues. Why? "I don't even know if those people speak the mother tongue." He kept going back to the central question. "Why, all of a sudden would they buy weapons in person?" No Mercenaire group he talked to had been contacted for work by the Caninites. "I wonder...nah, couldn't be. Well, why not? They may be the most powerful race in the neighborhood, but they sure ain't perfect. Suppose they've got a little trouble in their own tribe, clan, however they divide things up. I wonder if I can dig it out of this Pomerantz guy? Now that information would be worth something. I'll call the old man in the morning and run it by him." He went on, musing about the peculiarities of the situation. "We been around a long time ourselves. How come we never met up with these people? The idiots who wrote those books even made sketches of what they thought the Caninites looked like. No way. The drawings looked like something out of child's fairy tale, something to scare junior into eating his meal mix." He was feeling a lot better. "Fifi, get yer ass in here, I am by God in the mood." Her reply was at a tone level and volume as to leave no doubt at her interest. "Well, you can by God, forget it. I ain't your love slave and I ain't in the mood." Powerfist shrugged. He was still in a good mood. "You don't know what your missing, sweetheart." In the morning, General 'The Axe' Mulder, listened to Powerfist without blinking once. He was impressed with his subordinate's logic. He tried to poke holes in it and couldn't. "Powerfist, we may be full of bird dirt, but until we know otherwise, you chase this down. There might be some even bigger orders in this for us. Wouldn't that be something! The Caninites in a civil war! Good stuff, nothing meaner and juicier. When do you meet this Caninite buyer?" "Eleven-Four-oh, Sir, at the transfer dock. He's bringing eight or ten assistants. The Cthonian, Peter Magma, is renting us their meeting facility. It's right off the great Rotunda. We can move right from the preliminary meeting to the warehouses if those people are ready. I'll have to have him paged. Nobody knows what they look like." "Well, don't worry about it; it looks like you're about to find out. You'll go down in the history books," the General chuckled. "This is a good day. By God we're gonna have us a Dog Day Afternoon." Powerfist didn't say anything about the ethnic slur. The Axe was, after all the General, he could say whatever the hell he wanted. When he left The General was still gloating over how much money they were going to make. **************** Goodchild Pomerantz gathered his team in the enclosure. There was a whole lot of yapping going on. He quickly put a stop to it, biting the nearest server on the flank hard enough to draw blood. They crouched quietly and waited for him to speak. "We are two hours out from Metallica central. My instructions are simple. Do nothing until you receive instructions. I know every question you ask before you ask it. Why...because I already asked the Top Dog. This is a simple mission to buy weapons. We have the lists given us by General Ridgebeck." Their looks indicated serious questions about his sanity. This was okay, he had a few doubts himself. "Er...how shall we get about, sir?" one of the servers asked. "I think individual floaters will be best. We shall stay in cloaked stasis fields unless I say otherwise." "I see..." "I doubt that, but that is what we shall do." "But, sir," the same fellow asked, "you can't see that well when you're inside one of those things." "That's why we have robotics," Goodchild said sarcastically. "Try to get it through your thick head we aren't going there for a Showing. No one gives damn how nicely you stand. If you feel you can't do this, I'm sure we can find someone else to replace you." Goodchild put a cruel bite in it. "No, noo..." "Good. We will be set up with a private communication circuit. You have already been told this mission affects the survival of our people. You do not need to know the reasons for our task. If Peaceleader Dichsand wanted you to know he would have told you. That is all people. Do your duty." Powerfist and Charlie arrived at the meeting room early. There had been a long, totally unproductive discussion on what preparations should be made. Charlie asked questions then tried desperately to avoid getting his whole head torn from his shoulders by Powerfist who didn't have any answers. Charlie was feeling pretty much crapped upon. "I ask him, you want I should bring some booze," he muttered, "what do I get, my ear bent around the side of my head. What do I know? It ain't like anyone's telling me what's goin' on. How's about a couple broads, you know pretty things up, I ask. He tears the top off his desk and throws it through the wall...then he blames me, says it's coming out of my pay. I ain't God! One little joke, a good one too." In the middle of Powerfist's harangue, Charlie tried to lighten things up, let him know he could be depended on. "Hey Powerfist, it's a sorry dog that doesn't know his own master." Powerfist chose not to understand and threw Charlie through the hole after the desk. Powerfist stalked around the meeting room checking everything. "Quit sulking, Charlie. I didn't kill you. You ain't in the hospital. Look alert, confident. We ain't here doing the asking. We're here to serve customers. They may be Caninites but they're still customers." "Right, Powerfist, anything you say." Powerfist got a call on his personal net. He grunted a couple times and looked at Charlie. "They're on their way. Weird, they're using floaters and stasis fields. We ain't gonna see zip. We'll be talking to a bunch of goddamn robots." There was a clunk on the door. Charlie opened it and stepped aside as eight dull black lumps floated through the door on small platforms about a foot off the floor. Visible and attached to one side was a console of electronics sensors. They didn't say anything. They arrayed themselves around the table at the far end of the room. Goodchild Pomerantz heard a whisper on his net. " Can't see a thing in this ridiculous gizmo...nothing but a damn mushroom, keep me in the dark and feed me dog..." "Shut up and listen," Pomerantz growled. Powerfist and Charlie stood at the other end of the table trying to figure what to say to get the ball rolling. There was a long silence. Powerfist had been in tough situations before. You don't get to be a Colonel in the 18th Iron Force Marines standing around waiting for things to happen. "...Harrumm, my name is Powerfist Murdock, Manager on Metallica. Mr. Pomerantz, Kill Crazy Incorporated stands ready to provide you with anything you need to obliterate your enemies. How can we help you?" An arm extruded itself from one of the sensor packages, placed a data disc on the table and gave it a shove in Powerfist's direction. The voice that came from the floater unit was a high whine which grated on both Powerfist and Charlie's nerves. There was something about it that hit a nerve, an old, long forgotten nerve. "These are our requirements, Mr. Powerfist. We understood we were to meet with General Mulder, not his assistants. Powerfist almost asked him if he was the top dog. "The general won't be able to make it. Do you wish to cancel the meeting?" Be damned if I'll take trash from these electronic zipper heads. "No, no, we'll have the meeting." "Good. I'm going to review your purchase order. It'll take a few minutes. Lay down, stand up, whatever. Make yourselves comfortable." Powerfist slipped the disc in his portable computer and made access to the central inventory system. Charlie looked at the list over Powerfist's shoulder. Both jaws dropped. First item on the list: Atomic Howitzer, self-guided, Model 421ZZ. thirty each! Plus five hundred, read that again, five hundred shells. He only had ten units in stock and maybe a hundred shells. They scanned all thirty pages of the order, finally becoming numb with the sheer size of it. The computer quickly valued the order at three hundred and sixteen million credits. Powerfist shut his mouth with an audible click of teeth on teeth. "Gentlemen, we can supply most of this. If you plug into the access I'll punch up the items not available here on Metallica and give you dates when these items can be procured. This is going to take some time. I need to get with your techies, your technical people. You'll want to see the equipment, get the feel of it. Nothing's as satisfying as hefting a fully loaded plasma rifle, except maybe using it. Then there's shipping instructions, training in use, end user documents. Have you fellas arranged a place to stay?" "No. We did not expect to have to stay." Goodchild was nervous, indecisive. "What do I do now? Ridgebeck didn't say anything about staying. I wonder if now is the time to uncloak? You're an idiot, Goodchild, you should have pleaded mange, anything, gotten out of this mess. Let some other fool ruin his career." "Don't worry about it, Mr. Pomerantz. I'll arrange it. It'll be the best place in the city. Let's do that first then we can meet again later this afternoon," Powerfist said. Powerfist was the first to leave the meeting room. Charlie and the Caninites followed. The grand rotunda of the transfer facility was humming. People, powercarts with luggage and cargo: Food services and shops doing good business. They didn't get very far when one of the floaters ground to a halt. It was Pomerantz's. It whined, groaned and sank to the floor with a bang. They all milled around trying to decide what to do. Charlie moved in close to Powerfist's shoulder. "What're these idiots doing?" For once Powerfist didn't get mad. "I don't know, looks like they're trying to make a decision and they aren't very good at it. How in the name of the Gods did these hairballs get to be master's of the sector?" Goodchild's internal comm-net was working over time. He wasn't hearing any of it. "I can't do this! The Peaceleader is going to rip my ears off. What else can I do? Shut up on the net, instantly!" The yammering came to a halt. A decision had been made. "We will all uncloak. The rest of you use the floaters, I will walk. I'll ask them to have my machine repaired." Slowly the dull black blobs on each of the floaters dissolved to reveal what hadn't been revealed outside the Caninite worlds for a thousand years. Pomerantz and his people looked around, confused for a moment, then their attention focused on Powerfist Murdock and Charlie. Powerfist couldn't believe his eyes. He knew what they were. He didn't know how or why he knew, but he knew, and the killing hatred, fear and loathing was complete. Charlie was having the same reaction. The Caninites, their attention now focused on the snarling "things" in front of them went primitive in a hurry. None of them had impolitely bared their teeth outside of their own quarters since they were pups and didn't know any better. Powerfist crouched flat along the rotunda floor, small pyramid-shaped ears flat against his skull. His long luxuriant tail lashed back and forth. Powerfist and Charlie were not aware of the sounds coming from their throats. It was a yowling screech interspersed with hissing and guttural coughs. Around the area other Felinites crouched and did the same. It acted like an instant adrenaline jolt to the Caninites. They stood stiff-legged, trembling with atavistic excitement, their snarls and challenging barks getting louder and louder. Something had to happen, this kind of tension couldn't last. It did. Powerfist and Pomerantz inched forward, then Pomerantz leapt toward his ancient enemy. Powerfist went airborne smashing into Pomerantz's flank. He sank his claws in the ugly beasts shoulder and fastened his teeth on Pomerantz's ear. That was all it took. Caninites and Felinites crashed into each other in a wild charging, running, leaping, howling, snarling ball all across and around the rotunda on Metallica. Blood spattered. Torn ears drooped. Crushed tails bent at strange angles. There wasn't an ounce of intellect or reason left among the lot. Hate, hot and clean, coursed through every vein. The warrior song filled the air of the great domed building. Well off to one side, a tall, bi-pedal being stood in the shadows and watched. The Cthonian, Peter Magma, looked at the wild melee with amusement and satisfaction. His bright blue eyes missed nothing. He sighed like a man replete with fine food. "A thousand years I've waited to see this!" **************** Great Encyclopedia of Conflict: Entry 547.77 In the year 2488 A.DS The Caninites and Felinites went to war. For reasons too muddled to determine. The long years of conflict were called the Dog Wars. |
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