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Tales of the Dark Horses.

Captain Becca 2nd in Command of the Dark Horses Mercenary unit stared at the object in her hands, so familiar and yet strangely alien to her at this time of stress. She tapped her finger on the guard and looked up taking a deep breath to fortify her nerves.

Becca stepped forward and looked at the door to the quartermaster's stores. As she raised her hand she paused to study the painted wooden door; as she would expect of Major Kovac's base it was freshly painted but it was obvious whomever had done the job hadn't stripped or prepared the door first causing the paint to blister and crack. A minor thing but surprising for any of Kovac's Dark Horses. Becca pushed open the door.

The lights in the storefront were dimmed enabling Becca to see into the backroom of the QM's office, Major Kovac for once not wearing uniform was lounging on an old burst sofa, his bare foot resting on the corner of a low table. Leaning against him, possibly asleep was Sergeant Knickers, Captain Becca's 2IC. Sitting opposite them in a large relaxing chair of faded and shredded leather was Lisa the Quarter Master of the Dark Horses, ruddy faced and squat (possibly as broad as she was tall) she was wearing her ever present leather waistcoat, complete with her archaic pencil attached by a piece of string.

Lisa appeared to be smiling fondly at the two soldiers as she finished pouring herself a mug of tea. Kovac turned his head to look at Becca as she stood in the doorway and nodded to make the QM aware of her presence.

The QM stood and with a glower at Becca stomped into the front office, she leant her knuckles on her worktop and leaned forward. "Stilts?" The QM never called anyone by their rank or name.

"A requisition order for equipment and uniforms," Becca swallowed and continued, "I've itemised and prioritised them, some are for the troop others are for the Squadron as a whole Quatermaster."

Becca didn't know what eldritch power the QM possessed but something about the short, rotund woman with the greasy red hair terrified the Captain, her obvious displeasure at Becca's simple presence made her very gaze baleful.

"Bex, come join us," called Kovac.

Becca closed her eyes and offered a prayer to any gods who might receive her.

"Yeah come on Bex," called Knickers.

Unsure if she would ever breathe again Becca walked forward stiffly, passing a handswidth from the QM Becca had a moments surprise as she smelled lavender from the woman rather than dried blood as she expected. After she passed the QM Becca realised there was nowhere to sit, so stood awkwardly by the couch. The QM passed her, returning to her own throne, Becca worried that she'd lost all sensation on her right side as the QM passes that side.

"Stilts is too tall to be in here," growled the QM.

"Oh knock it off mother, she's 6 inches shorter than I am," Kovac said.

"Exactly, that's 12 feet of people in my lounge." A vague gesture at Knickers, "Sweet and you are alright Troop but add another body and it makes the place look untidy."

"Be nice to Bex, Lees, she's starting to sway, I think Captains Wolf and Dorman are coming here too with the Sergeant Major." Knickers said.

"Better put some water on mother," said Kovac - they weren't related, though it was a term Kovac used for the QM and none other.

"No point, I only own three bloody cups."

Hearing this Kovac closed his eyes and smiled and then looked upwards muttered under his breath, "of course you fucking do." He stood, and moving across the room kissed the hairline on the round woman's head, "never change RQ, never do that to me."

Kicking on his thong-sandles Kovac strolled past Becca to the door, "we'll relocate to my office."

Kovac and Knickers were the only two out of uniform, the others; Becca, Captain Dorman and Wolf and Sergeant Major Chloe aka "Panther" and sergeants Fluke and Glover were all in uniform. Even for Becca who was Kovac's partner it seemed odd to see him in anything but military dress. He was in an unusual mood too, strangely glib and appeared disinterested.

"Apologies sir, is there a better time for us to do this?" Becca asked, irritated as the Major toyed with a pocket knife.

Suddenly Kovac was sitting at his desk, his face intense. He swept his gaze across the faces of his subordinate officers and senior NCOs, "we're lost."

The matter of fact statement was met with silence, "we fought in a nasty war, we did nasty things. The mask slipped and we didn't get to see ourselves as noble heroes we saw behind the curtain and it turns out we're killers."

He gestured around the room, "we've all been guilty of it, humans are the protectors of the galaxy, cosmic heroes who fly in on a spaceship and win the battles for the vulnerable and protecting the peace. Then we used chemical weapons to win the war against the Xhost. Millions dead and Billions; Trillions maybe, saved.

Kovac gave a shrug, "what difference is there between killing someone with a rifle than with White Phosphorous?"

Becca looked at her fellow officers faces, they were blank.

Kovac closed his eyes, "it has always saddened me that humans made contact with the rest of the galaxy and it was our war fighting, our savage nature that made us. How few of humanity's contributions to the Galaxy have been anything non-military?"

"We all joined the military for different reasons, some of us have family history, others wanted to see the galaxy, a few of us made the decision based on poverty and wanting to avoid starvation or incarceration. Whatever the reason we've ended up soldiers hoping to do good things, wanting to be heroes, when the feeling comes to you that you might be the villains the glamour slips away and you're left to see what we really are. Paid killers."

"The Xhost campaign, what we did...it was all necessary sir" Captain Mark Dorman said, rather forcefully.

"I know Captain, I was the one that ordered it, the issue is our perception." Kivac glanced around the room, "so much of our cultural heritage, our heroes of myths and legends are war fighters, the Song of Roland, Thermopylae, Captain America, Rambo..." he gestured vaguely to indicate he couldn't think of many others currently. "Warriors all, sadly the reality isn't as good as the myths and legends."

Captain Becca was watching her fellow Sublalterns, none of them looked happy. "What's your point sir?"

"That war is terrible, its awful and anyone who tells you differently is selling something. We get sold a glittering ideal and then up closewe find its caked in the blood and shit of friends and lovers." He sighed, "to borrow a phrase, war crimes...all wars are crimes. You're either a perpetrator or a victim but it's still a crime you're involved in."

Major Kovac stood up, he looked more animated than he had done in weeks. His gaze swept across the captains and their sergeants. "The scales have fallen, some of our men; most of our men are realising that what we do is take and end lives. Others put there come in after and save lived, they heal and rebuild. We are killers, destroyers and wreckers. If they can't come to peace with that then they will need to make a decision."

"The malaise has gone on long enough, get out there and drill them, beast them, get them too tired to think and too obsessed with their skills and drills to worry about why they do it. Anyone has any issues is welcome to come and talk to me, we have a pension fund for a reason. Dismissed."

Becca was silent as she walked out, Knickers followed closely behind, also silent. She could hear Dorman and his sergeant having a muttered conversation behind her. Already she felt better, she had orders and a purpose, she needed to be a leader and to help her soldiers.

#humans are insane #humans are space australians #humans are space orcs #space australia #space orcs #humans are wierd #humans are space oddities #humans are confusing #humans are dumb #space faerie #kovac

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For some reason I can't reply to anything on tumblr not even on my own posts. Any tips on how to fix that is appreciated.

Otherwise I know it's been a while since I last posted humans are space orcs but that's for a bunch of reasons and to the three people who regularly used to enjoy my stuff...thanks.

Humans are Weird: Decency

The Carrier had just left orbit when they came through the cabin. Tuuliup glanced up at the movement and stared, humans! He'd never seen them before, they were everything he'd heard they were.

Terrifying, with their luminous, translucent skin, forward facing eyes to better focus on their prey. One turned and bared it's teeth at its companion, sharp for tearing flesh. Tuuliup refined his gaze, humans were so hot they burned his senses but by dampening his vision he could see them more accurately, he supposed now they looked more like humans would appear to each other.

The lead, clearly a male was tall, even for humans that were a gigantic species. He appeared overgrown having to stoop to move through the cabin his broad thorax turned side on to fit through, movements that were probably languid to a human betrayed too much, too fluid for such a large creature and hinting at massive power barely contained. The other two were females, the first was talking, too quickly for Tuuliup to follow, her teeth were bared and the sight made Tuuliup shrink back into his seat. The final human was smaller than both the others her frame managed to appear large and yet still small compared to her companions. This one had her mouth closed thankfully but her eyes scanned the cabin constantly seeking signs of weakness.

"Knickers sit there, I'll sit here and Bex you grab a seat beside the Flet," the male said, his voice slower and deeper and easier to understand.

The humans had been in their seats for about an hour and Tuuliup was still stealing furtive glances. The male had fallen asleep immediately, Tuuliup couldn't imagine feeling so secure you could sleep in a crowded, public place, the taller female had been staring at a device for most of the time while the smaller female had taken out a ball of thin cord and was clicking the cord with two spikes. Tuuliup had never heard of humans using webs to hunt but this one seemed to be forming one.

The idea of a human, implacable, following you even as you long for rest and in the final moments catching you in a web or net was too much for Tuuliup and he gnawed his tail in fear.

Tuuliup could remember reading the stories of humans, metals in their teeth for aesthetic reasons. Ingesting toxins for pleasure, loss or damage of a limb is not fatal; he'd thought them all myths, now being this close Tuuliup could believe them all, apart from the pack bonding. Tuuliup could not imagine a predator race taking another creature into their fold if not to eat them or at the very least keep them as a potential food source.

The transport gave a slight shudder as it slowed it's engines, they had entered the neutral zone. Tuuliup felt his pulse quicken at the thought of being no longer protected by Galactic Defence Force patrols, out here it was better to run slower with sensors and weapons fully powered, more warning of an attack. The neutral zone wasn't as dangerous as it had once been, the Xhost raiding parties had long since stopped, the equivalent of bandits were all that remained, still Tuuliup felt fear.

Tuuliup watched in horror as the smallest human moved, her mouth opened impossibly wide, revealing a mouthful of sharp white teeth. She closed her mouth and Tuuliup could see the muscles in her jaw-the strongest in the human body tighten as she straightened and arched her back her arms twisting awkwardly, it seemed as though every muscle on her frame had tensed. Just as Tuuliup was sure she was about to spring into an attack she slumped back onto the chair and closed her eyes. Her head turned sideways exposing her throat to those around her, again Tuuliup felt a thrill of vicarious fear at being so exposed.

He was looking in the right direction so Tuuliup heard the detonation before the tremors ran through the bulkhead. The humans were all awake and gesturing at one another, eerily silent the male seemed to override protests and the three of them settled in their seats as all around others stood, called out and cried.

Focusing his hearing Tuuliup could just hear repeat detonations and felt more tremors. Gone was the faint hope it had been an asteroid strike, it was clear now it was a raid. Tuuliup hoped it was the Burtuq, they would halt the ship, steal the contents of the hold and retreat.

Karnac were not above raiding and banditry work ,the Glehfleklfle might steal a ship but unlikely a mass transporter. If he was unlucky it would be Flet bandits, they would search every passenger for wealth.

There were heavy thuds and muffled yelps followed by groans of pain and two security officers, one Flet and one Garax were thrown into the passenger compartment from above. The passengers reacted, bleating with fear, crying out and some standing, pushing through others to get some distance. The humans had gone very still.

Tuuliup felt a trill of despair escape his throat as the attackers entered the cabin. Two meters at the shoulder with a head that extended forwards not upwards from the body. Smooth green skin turning yellow in the centre of a sinuous body, a long muscular bi-tail moved as a counter weight to the broad head with heavy tusks that moved side to side looking out over the crowd. Splici were notoriously dangerous, threatening to prey species across the galaxy they were proud of their carnivorous roots and indulged in hunting and feasting on any prey they identified. Three Splici swaggered down the aisle they seemed to take joy in singling out individuals, making two Votoli hand over payment credits and communication devices, stripping a Frell of all its possessions, they made an old Garax scales faded with age relieve a Qu'rell mother of all valuables including the silks she hung about her upper limbs, a wicked crime no different than stripping a human of all clothing.

As the strutting thieves made their way back down the aisle a Tellrell was pulled from its seat, followed by a Votoli. They were near the exit when one stopped and pointed, at Tuuliup.

"That one, good eating on a Anracine."

Tuuliup bloated in fear. They approached him from both sides of the aisle, cutting off any half formed thoughts of flight.

Splici laughter is more a susurration as its generated by neck scales but it's unmistakable. All three were laughing when they approached Tuuliup, when they grabbed his forelimb he could feel his heart racing in his chest so fast he feared it would kill him.

"Leave him," said a voice.

Tuuliup, his ears filled with his thundering heart could feel his vision blurring he was too stressed but the voice had a calming effect.

There were raised voices and a repeater fired once. Splici laughter.

The laughter stopped abruptly as one of the Splici began to sag, his body jerking in a horrid manner. Spasms and twitches were still drawing Tuuliup's attention when the sound of repeater fire snapped him back to the situation.

It dawned on Tuuliup that one of the female humans had driven her web making tool into the base of a Splici's skull. The other two Splici had been attacked by the two remaining humans. One was on the floor its neck at an impossible angle the other clawed at a ruined throat, standing over it was the human male, the human was bleeding.

"Would you stop getting shot!" hissed the closest female.

Tuuliup felt stunned that the human had risked its life for a stranger, but watching all three arm themselves and the human male tear cloth straps from the Splici dead to bind his wounded arm fear of the prey species flared back; their movement was so purposeful and direct.

The smaller human returned the silk bindings to the Qu'rell while the other two moved down the aisle between the rows of seats, now filled with excited and nervous passengers.

Tuuliup felt as if he'd shortened his life considerably with the strain on his heart in the past few minutes but he almost wanted to follow the humans and see what happened next.

Instead he kept still, listening to the humans, the male laughed when the taller female said "yipkayaymothfoka" perhaps an unknown human dialect? As the male climbed through the narrow hatchway into the crew compartment he muttered "come out to the coast we'll get together, have a few laughs." Apparently humans were so familiar with violence they could plan vacations during those periods.

Tuuliup heard bursts of repeater fire but they didn't last, the humans returned to the passenger compartment stating the captain and crew were all okay and in control of the ship.

At the destination Tuuliup approached the humans hesitantly, he made a small gesture asking to speak and the humans turned to him. The larger female began to show her teeth but covered her mouth. None of the humans kept their gaze on Tuuliup which helped settle his nerves.

"Thank you, you saved my life, thank you" he said feeling it wasn't enough.

"You're welcome," the male said, "can't have fellow passengers getting eaten, saving you seemed the decent thing to do."

"I'm sorry you were hurt," Tuuliup was aware that the smaller female was moving with deliberate slowness. The humans were showing consideration for a prey species.

"Just a flesh wound, I've had worse," the human covered his mouth, "thank you for approaching us, it can't have been easy."

"Thanking you seemed the decent thing to do."...

Kovac watched as the Tuuliup sped away, Knickers hit him on the uninjured arm. "Imagine laughing like that infront of a foody like that, loud noises and all those teeth, poor thing would be terrified."

"Knickers, don't call prey species foodys", chided Becca, "it's not the decent thing.

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Those are some really mesmerising anal beads

look at this

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Laughed out loud at the crew room at work

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I’ve finally managed to make a vine compilation short enough that Tumblr will let me post it!

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Adds a.azing depth to world building.

Also fascinating

To say, “This is my uncle,” in Chinese, you have no choice but to encode more information about said uncle. The language requires that you denote the side the uncle is on, whether he’s related by marriage or birth and, if it’s your father’s brother, whether he’s older or younger.

“All of this information is obligatory. Chinese doesn’t let me ignore it,” says Chen. “In fact, if I want to speak correctly, Chinese forces me to constantly think about it.”

This got Chen wondering: Is there a connection between language and how we think and behave? In particular, Chen wanted to know: does our language affect our economic decisions?

Chen designed a study — which he describes in detail in this blog post — to look at how language might affect individual’s ability to save for the future. According to his results, it does — big time.

While “futured languages,” like English, distinguish between the past, present and future, “futureless languages,” like Chinese, use the same phrasing to describe the events of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Using vast inventories of data and meticulous analysis, Chen found that huge economic differences accompany this linguistic discrepancy. Futureless language speakers are 30 percent more likely to report having saved in any given year than futured language speakers. (This amounts to 25 percent more savings by retirement, if income is held constant.) Chen’s explanation: When we speak about the future as more distinct from the present, it feels more distant — and we’re less motivated to save money now in favor of monetary comfort years down the line.

But that’s only the beginning. There’s a wide field of research on the link between language and both psychology and behavior. Here, a few fascinating examples:

Navigation and Pormpuraawans In Pormpuraaw, an Australian Aboriginal community, you wouldn’t refer to an object as on your “left” or “right,” but rather as “northeast” or “southwest,” writes Stanford psychology professor Lera Boroditsky (and an expert in linguistic-cultural connections) in the Wall Street Journal. About a third of the world’s languages discuss space in these kinds of absolute terms rather than the relative ones we use in English, according to Boroditsky. “As a result of this constant linguistic training,” she writes, “speakers of such languages are remarkably good at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes.” On a research trip to Australia, Boroditsky and her colleague found that Pormpuraawans, who speak Kuuk Thaayorre, not only knew instinctively in which direction they were facing, but also always arranged pictures in a temporal progression from east to west.

Blame and English Speakers In the same article, Boroditsky notes that in English, we’ll often say that someone broke a vase even if it was an accident, but Spanish and Japanese speakers tend to say that the vase broke itself. Boroditsky describes a study by her student Caitlin Fausey in which English speakers were much more likely to remember who accidentally popped balloons, broke eggs, or spilled drinks in a video than Spanish or Japanese speakers. (Guilt alert!) Not only that, but there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims, Boroditsky argues.

Color among Zuñi and Russian Speakers Our ability to distinguish between colors follows the terms in which we describe them, as Chen notes in the academic paper in which he presents his research (forthcoming in the American Economic Review; PDF here). A 1954 study found that Zuñi speakers, who don’t differentiate between orange and yellow, have trouble telling them apart. Russian speakers, on the other hand, have separate words for light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). According to a 2007 study, they’re better than English speakers at picking out blues close to the goluboy/siniy threshold.

Gender in Finnish and Hebrew In Hebrew, gender markers are all over the place, whereas Finnish doesn’t mark gender at all, Boroditsky writes in Scientific American (PDF). A study done in the 1980s found that, yup, thought follows suit: kids who spoke Hebrew knew their own genders a year earlier than those who grew up speaking Finnish. (Speakers of English, in which gender referents fall in the middle, were in between on that timeline, too.)

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If vine was still with us this would have at least 3 well known quotes.

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Hidden Skills

I love when a person you know reveals a hidden skill, my colleague and I recently saved a man at a sports college and as a thank you the station received a load of free passes to various classes.

So we get there and I try out archery and ultimate frisbee and sepak-takraw, my colleague tries a few and then we go to the fencing. Now I did a bit at school (cos it was that sort of school) but my colleague doesn't have the sort of background where epee use is something that might come up too often.

So he picks up the foil and beats me in seconds, then a few other people then the best in the class and finally the instructor. He beats them easily. Turns out he was married to a former Olympic modern pent-athlete & trained with her a lot.

Of all my colleagues he was the last person I could imagine having any proficiency at any sport and especially not something as unusual as fencing!

#hidden talent #humans are wierd #sports #fencing

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@spaceorcscollector here you go man

Humans are Space Orcs

Part 1: Pineapple

Humans are by their very nature curious, they are fascinated by the unknown and want to know how things work and why, not all humans are interested in knowing how the same things work, some want to know how mechanical devices work, others want to know what makes humans work and how, some are fascinated by the workings of the human mind, and some want nothing more than to understand the very intimate workings of this universe.

You all know me as Professor Gleax, the galaxy’s leading expert in human culture and behaviour, so please believe me when I tell you that when I say humans are so much more interested in finding out how something works than if it will keep working after they have taken it apart to study it.

You see twinned with their curiosity is their ingenuity, not only do they want to know, they’ll invent a way to find out. This…ability? Disability? The fact that they can question things means that inevitably the question they reach is “Why not?” And that was the question that haunted me, along with its insipid fellow, the statement “let’s see”. It works in their favour quite often, they have the ability to look at a mundane occurrence and interpret it, this is how medicine was born, the fact that they can see a medication once used to treat emesis-gravidarum with disastrous consequences and not only learn of the significance of chiral molecules but repurpose that medication as a cure for leprosy and myeloma…Humans see things we don’t.

I had never seen Kovac move so quickly, his attackers, three Flet stalked across the room towards him, tall for a human Kovac was still dwarfed by the 2.5m tall 8 limbed creatures, as frequent antagonists to the galactic peace process and the galactic council human forces had assigned the Flet with a nickname, “Kitties” as with most human names for enemies it was considered mocking, I had asked why not a more accurate name like “Lions” and had been told “you don’t make the enemy cool”. Kovac backed into a covered table and rolled over the top of it finding himself space. The Major had been visiting the market to find supplies and stopped for a drink when the first of the winged “kitties” had struck at him. Kovac, finding himself in a dark, empty drinking establishment had disengaged and tried to make an exit when he had met the next two Flet.

All four of them were unarmed but unlike Kovac the Flet possess 10cm retractable claws on each of their 6 limbs and a further claw on their wing tips. Kovac had reached a large open space in the centre of the bar when he stopped moving, he took a deep breath and raised one hand, palm out and tried to reason with the approaching attackers, the first to reach him lashed out at his extended hand, it recoiled in pain as Kovac struck with his other hand. Bright blood sprayed across the floor as Kovac ripped his karambit blade down the creatures arm. However Kovac had concealed the weapon he had succeeded and now he put it to brutal use, within a few breaths the largest of the Flet had had been torn and cut to ribbons, both wings shredded and bleeding from multiple wounds, all of them sites of major blood vessels. The creature used the last of its failing strength to fall against Kovac, twisting the blade from his grip and falling on it. Kovac retreated, as the two remaining kitties closed in, he kicked chairs into their path and as they slowed to go round them he launched an assault on one, using his momentum he spun his attackers, putting a table and the body of the defeated kitty between them and the third Flet, they traded blows a moment and then the Flet gave a his of pain, Kovac had another weapon, it took me a moment to realise he didn’t, what he had were the wire framed “sunglasses” humans wear in bright light, and he was using them like a weapon, whipping them across the opponents limbs and face, Flet lack the human ability to ignore pain or at least not to the degree of humans so where Kovac accepted the cuts he had sustained from raking claws; the kitty recoiled from the flashing wire, Kovac preformed a dropkick to his opponent’s chest, landed heavily and “kickflipped” back to his feet diving headlong over his fallen attacker as the third kitty rushed him from behind. Kovac rolled to his feet turned to face one hissing kitty, wounded but back on two paws and one kitty, as yet uninvolved, the glasses in his hand were broken and mangled, he dropped them.

Major Kovac looked around him and muttered, “let’s see.” He reached onto the bar surface and displaying the unusual technique humans have threw three drinking utensils in quick succession at the injured Flet which staggered and had to fall behind a table to evade the onslaught. Out of projectiles Kovac snatched up the largest item from the bar and threw the whole fruit bowl at the final on-rushing Flet. He used the pause it earned him to close the gap between them and land two solid blows to the Flet’s head and chest, his third blow was blocked and he had to dodge the counter, he ducked another attack, this opponent was taking advantage of its extra limbs and kicked spilled fruit at his attacker. Dancing back Kovac scooped something up off the ground and as the kitty attacked again he met the claws with an apple, neatly capping the razor sharp claws with fruit, he landed his own punch as the kitty shook it’s paw trying to be free of the hard fruit and as it staggered back Kovac landed another punch and then grabbed the taller creature and planted two hard knee strikes into the Flet’s abdomen. The creature collapsed, doubled in pain, Kovac barely had time to avoid the weakened Flet as it came for him, he fell rolled twice and came up to his knees raising something above his head the Flet’s claws sliced through it and flensed the tissue of his left forearm, Kovac gasped in pain and lashed out with his good arm, striking the snarling Flet in the eyes with the spiky leaves of a pineapple, looking at his shredded, blood dripping arm Kovac growled, “bad kitty.” He surged to his feet and switching his grip smashed the creature under the chin with an up upswung pineapple, yellow pulp sprayed everywhere. He bore-down on the creature forcing the ruined fruit into it’s face with the injured left arm he pummeled it with his right fist, mashing fruit into it’s fur and blood with each blow, it looked horrific but it smelled amazing.

Breathing heavily Kovac paused long enough to plant a kick into the head of the weakly stirring kitty before collecting me and heading for the door.

An intelligent species would see pineapple as a dangerous substance that dissolves your flesh, a reasonable species might view it as a suitable food in times of famine, a ridiculous species would see it as appropriate for helping with certain sexual rituals and also mix it with poisons to make sweet-sickly drinks for hot sunny days on the beach…only humans, only these peculiar monsters would do all of that and also see it as an appropriate weapon in a fight for your life.

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Dark Horses 6

So, what are the Xhost? Now, so long after they have left the stars it's a question that can be asked.

The Xhost were an idea that became a cult, if humans are more durable and Rhul are faster and Biviladi are more adaptable to environmental changes what if instead of celebrating the diversity we examined the discrepancies and found a common ground?

A noble thought, corrupted, corrupted into the Xhost where races were genetically modified to be a bit of everything, differences were no longer celebrated as part of a more fantastic whole but instead were vilified as non-conforming.

To the Xhost purity was required, variation was the enemy.

Kovac sat against the wall looking at his friends, Wolf shook his head and turned to Dorman for support.

"No," said Kovac, " you both have opinions and you're both entitled to them, but you're wrong.

It's as simple as this. Iron man is the greatest superhero, all those with superpowers built in can fuck right off, if your solution to a problem is punching harder then you're not a solution. Iron man's super power is thinking better than all of the others, he figures stuff out, after that his inventions win fights. All the other smart guys either have powers or their limited, I mean Batman isn't a one man army. Reed Richards works stuff out then relies on being Mr Fantastic to solve the problem.

Also Tony fights butt naked and the rest don't."

Kovac looked at his friends and smiled at their faces, "look it's this simple, your mind, the human mind is the greatest weapon in the galaxy. Now the second lesson I have to teach you is this simple, no matter what your taste in music one song needs special attention."

"We Will Rick You, by Queen will be remembered as a Pride song but it shouldn't be. What really matters is the solo or fade out; that piece of guitar play by May...everything else is just delivery for that.

Finally, if you're not happy, watching bad television at 0400 with you're partner then you're relationship won't last, if their presence doesn't bring you joy then move on.

Right that's about it, that's my life time knowledge, guess we should see this out then." Kovac stood.

Outside the Xhost forces had swept across the continent.

"Major, you know that the General will mobilise to defend us, even with the bones of a brigade. Major General Michaela Jones will be here," Wolf said.

"I know Wolf, the question has always been how do we drive the Xhost back? They control more sectors than the Rhul and the Flet together, they control more planet's than the Korlax."

"They've never defeated the Galactic Council forces though." Dorman countered.

"Well that's not strictly true, they've never won a war against the GCDF but they've always required mobilising core divisions and I hate to say it but that means human troops, we're the backbone of the GCDF without our presence the Xhost have seen success."

"You really don't think we can save the Towoli? Or the EDC?" Wolf asked morose.

"With a squadron of combat engineers? No." The Major was terse in his response.

Captain Becca looked out at the gathering darkness, "three days to capture the Towoli and secure the cities, so on the fourth day they turn around and hit the EDC, they're dug in now, so they last, maybe another four days and then it us. In this position we can last, maybe three days. That gives the Major-general two weeks, to raise at least a brigade and to get to us..." the question hung in the air unasked.

Kovac puffed out his cheeks, and rubbed his right forearm. "Remember in the 88th there became this belief that I'd pull it out of the fire, everytime it looked impossible odds you'd hear the men, "trust in kovac" I have that faith in Michaela Jones. Our only job right now is to keep open this beach head so she can land the troops. Now I've shared my life's wisdom with you, who has any other nuggets to share?"

Sergeant Major Panther had her own meeting with her sergeants, the needs of various troops and sections were discussed and the talk turned to how long they could hold out, "Captain says three at a push, but knowing the Major, if say closer to five."

"It'll take them a week to roll the Towoli and the EDC so by the end of the second week it'll be all over," said Sergeant Webb.

"No, you're forgetting Webb, we've got Kovac, 'keep calm and trust in Kovac' I've been saying that for over ten years now and I'll keep saying as long as he keeps earning my damn faith." Knickers glared at her fellow sergeants, "what was it he always said? It's us, it's us the 88th, well now it's us the Dark Horses but it's still us, we're still the real first in last out and we're still fighting fit and fucking ugly, Kovac will know what to do and when he asks us to do the impossible we'll deliver."

Panther grinned, "Exactly, so get out there and tell that to the men, wipe their little faces, help them blow their noses and smack the heads that need smacking, we are the Dark Horses and we will do what is needed."

"Except the Major is sitting there saying the same about the General," Webb said, "you all know I love the man, he's personally saved my life four times that I can count, if anyone can save us he can...but he isn't trying to. He's not even mentioned trying to save the Towoli and the EDC, he's said we use them as cannon fodder. Our hope is that we get rescued by the woman we walked away from to follow Kovac."

The sergeant-major stared at her sergeants, she seemed at a loss for what to say.

"I'll keep my faith thank you Webb. You're not wrong, yet, but I'll put my trust in Kovac."

Corporal Grey was growing weary of banging heads, the men were despondent and grumbling. The leader they trusted beyond all others was finally cornered and they could all see it. He watched as Captain Dorman walked away from the Major looking down-trodden, after a few steps the officer managed to organise himself and he straightened his shoulders and put his head up...keeping up appearances.

"I hear you're out of ideas and we're all fucked," said a coarse voice behind Kovac.

"Hello RQ," said Kovac without turning round, "and do you believe it?"

"Of course not, you need extra arms for all the tricks up your sleeves," scoffed the Quartemaster, "but they do, the rank, which I'm guessing is the point."

"They're good people, good people don't become monsters without falling down first, I need them to be monsters, they have to lose hope so when I throw them a cobra for a life line they grab it."

"What's the plan troop?"

"The secret to Xhost success is that the Xhost have their own supply of fuel, took us a while to realise what it was, now they use a variety of tricks but the basic component is Phosphene gas, toxic and smells like rotten fish half the time. So the finest galactic scientists looked at how they could inhibit their engines, how they could stop the Xhost fuelling their war machine, they failed. Then a human looked at it, her solution was deemed too heinous, the very suggestion caused humanity some problems, as we were suddenly seen as viscious and evil."

"What was her solution?"

"Chemistry, it's beyond me but...have you ever heard of White Phosphorus?"

The Qm blanched, "really!? That's your solution?"

"Turn their fuel into chemical weapons, I just need men desperate enough to agree to it."

"Kovac..."

Kovac turned to look at the Qm, "first time you've ever called me that, look, we can sit here and let the Xhost slaughter the Towoli and the EDC or we can act, to save innocent lives, maybe we need to be less innocent."

The Qm was quiet a moment and then sighed, "you think we have to?"

"I do."

"Alright then," she touched his arm and left him.

Kovac stared into the gathering gloom, "Clausewitz never finished and Ludendorff was a bastard who lost," he seemed to mutter to himself.

Later Kovac would say it was almost sad how quickly his men agreed to his plan, but they did. So within 6 hours his troops were prepared and moving out.

Before dawn the Dark Horses had returned to their fortifications, none of the normal a activities were on display, showing pride in a job we'll done. Instead the attitude was grim, an unpleasant job but one needing done.

Outside in the skies and on the ground, the Xhost burned, White Phosphorus burns on contact with air and it can burn even human flesh to the bone. Steel melts at half the temperature of burning white phosphorus.

I've seen artists renderings of the human construct of hell, the day the Xhost burned was brighter, hotter and there was more smoke. The issue of demons I'll leave to other scholars.

Ten days later Major General Michaela Jones landed with the 3rd army of the Galactic Defence Force to discover a smoking planet and the Towoli and EDC talking about burning skies and enemies vaporized in a wall of heat.

The Dark Horses, grim of face and closed in demeanour said nothing, they simply boarded and left with the advance ships into Xhost territory.

There is a phrase amongst those who study human kind, it's taken from their own old language, a term itself bastardised from an even older tale, "humans are space-orcs"

To humans it's funny, "the human can withstand the loss of a limb and is capable of feats of strength near impossible to other races, they fix metal into their mouths and inject their skins for aesthetic purposes...ha ha, fuck yeah we're space-orcs"

But to those of us who study, it means something different, orcs are the monsters of human fiction, rewritten and redefined they are brutal, barbarous and backwards. Their savagery and their lack of humanity is common in all their iterations. Orcs are the monsters humans see in themselves.

We space going species forget that humans may be like us in their hunt for answers but they got to this technology not through global cooperation but through war-driven advances and international tensions and competition.

They have only recently become the advanced global society we know, just under the surface lies the monster. Humans are Space Orcs.

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

So I know the Chemistry is a bit hinky here according to a chemist friend of mine what I've said is possible but not easily but...hey It's sci-fi.

Anyway this one ends in a dark place but it's where it went and I can't really pretend I know what I'm doing.

As always feedback is appreciated.

#humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #space orcs #space australia #space faerie #earth is a deathworld #earth is weird #dark horses #this is why i call kovac daddy #kovac

[sirro85-blog]

Dark Horses 5

Kovac hoved into view, his face caked in congealed with blood, his eyes bright through the grime, his mouth split into a grin.

"Do you feel the joy of it? The everliving fucking joy," his voice was animated and loud, "I tell you now, you'll never feel as alive as you do right now!"

Kovac looked around, his movements feral, "I love this job," another mad grin, "you'll never feel alive again!"

Costa jerked awake and looked around, he was slumped in a chair, around him soldiers worked. Staff Sergeant Frank King was binding Butlanska's wounds.

"You doing ok trooper?" Asked a voice.

Costa looked up feeling dazed, "uh, yes ma'am," he responded.

"Very good trooper, come with me," said the Quartermaster.

Something sparked in Costa's numb brain, "you called me trooper, ma'am."

"I did, would you rather I change?" Came the response.

"No, no trooper is good, ma'am" Costa said stumbling after the large woman, he'd never enjoyed being called "Cherub"

Ten minutes later Costa was sat at a table tucking into a plate of food, he had clean clothes and had enjoyed a brief shower, now the Quartermaster had produced cottage pie and vimto seemingly by magic and he was filling up on his favourite meal. The Quartemaster stood nearby, he could tell she wasn't watching him.

Captain Dorman and Sergeant Webb approached, they both stopped a distance off as the Qm's baleful glare turned to them, "evening Qm, I wanted a chat with Trooper Costa, debrief him after his escapades with the Major."

"Later."

"I was rather, er hoping, he's in our command...welfare," the Captain trailed off.

"I've got him right now, Major told me, you can talk later Hero, take Plank and get about your day," spoke the Qm.

Costa, feeling more alert and less dazed appreciated the peace, he respected his Troop commander and his sergeant but this period of calm made him feel whole again, he watched the two men walk away. He felt even better when Ty was brought across to sit with him.

"Here you go Mouth," said the Qm handing a bottle of iced tea to Ty, it was his favourite brand.

His meal finished Costa felt renewed, The Qm gave him a nod and walked away. A minute or so later Major Kovac appeared and patted Ty on his uninjured arm.

"Damn good to see you in one piece trooper," Costa here went through the ringer keeping you alive, would've been a damn shame to waste that effort," he turned to Costa, "Costa, tell Sergeant Webb I said you can carry that kukri anywhere you want." The Major nodded to them both and walked off. Ty placed his hand over Costa's and they sat in silence for a while.

"Cherub, Mouth stop lazing about holding hands and piss off back to work the pair of you," yelled the Qm and the two troopers ran for it.

The Dark Horses fortified their positions and scouts were sent out to check the secondary Bartuq positions.

Barbie stopped running and lay down on the floor, "It's too much, it's too damn wet, this isn't air this is soup!"

Becca turned back and jogged over to her, "struggling Baps?"

"Fuck your skinny ass Becca, this is too damn hot. Its a jungle, its like 1000% humidity," gasped Panther dropping to her knees beside the prone Barbie.

"Come on, it's not so bad, we round this headland and comeback down by the river, one of the rivers, we'll make it about 12k back to base." Becca said jogging round her two friends.

Knickers slowed to a stop and bent at the waist, gasping for breath, "If we, kill her here, we can, dump the body, in the river, and claim, she went on, ahead."

"Oh come on, it's not all that bad we're over 2/3 done. Only a little more suffering left," Becca encouraged.

"Listen bitch," Barbie said rolling onto her knees, "you think just because you like pain the rest of us want this?"

"I don't like pain?"

"Really!? Hurt-me-Daddy-Becca doesn't like pain? Choke-me-Daddy-Becca isn't enjoying being short of breath?" Scoffed Panther.

Becca stopped jogging on the spot, "I don't call Kovac Daddy."

"No? What do you call him? Master?" Panther hooted, "Major!!?"

"Oh Major, yes sir, I'll do anything you order Major, do you salute?"

Becca pouted and rounded on Panther, "what about you? Do you call Wolf sir while on your knees?"

Panther gave a peal of laugher, "fuck off, he calls me a goddess before we even start, he only outranks me out here, we all know Kovac is the big dog everywhere."

"Speaking of the big-dog, has the Major made a decision about this second position we need to capture?" Asked Barbie looking from her troop commander to her Sergeant.

"Nothing yet, but you can trust the Major will have a plan," answered Knickers.

Barbie nodded accepting this fact and gestured to the path, "shall we get this over with?" They started to jog down the track.

Kovac was sitting with Wolf in his office, "the plan has to be simple Wolf, there is no magic trick to this, we breech and we force them south onto the savannah and any survivors get mopped up by Towoli security forces at a later date, once the second defensive structure is captured they're finished as a power," Kovac spread his hands.

Wolf nodded, "look, overall it's a good plan but the idea of this being a rapid breech entry job, it's a bit...old fashioned."

"RBE is a classic because it works, long and short of it is, we need to get in and we need to do it fast, Dorman will breech, Becca will push in and you will sweep. I'll have Gilly set up the gunners to drive any escaping frogs south." Kovac stood, "once the Qm has the ordinance redistributed we'll give orders."

The Dark Horses were a unique force in the galaxy, taken wholesale from a regiment that had taken heavy losses they had all been trained to the same standard and even for human military were considered highly trained. I found during my time with these humans that I took their training for granted, these were not the human standard, these were the heights humanity could reach in this area. Twinned with this complacency was an amazement that humans could train, could learn a skill and develop it to a level of brilliance even to other humans. Most races known were born to their specific tasks in society.

Of course all species could develop or enhance a skill but none could break a typecast like humans could.

When the Dark Horses attacked the Bartuq defence, I realised I was watching military unit that had been working together and been led by the same officers for over a decade.

It looked like the fluid parts of a machine, 3 troop stole forwards in the gloom and placed their charges, they breached the outer perimeter and Becca led 2 troop forward, flooding the breach and securing a position. Fortified by Dorman's 3 Troop Becca pushed on and Wolf came behind to support them. Within the hour the Bartuq compound was captured.

I joined Becca and Kovac on the ridge watching the Bartuq stream out into the grasslands, their numbers greatly diminished.

"Tough bit of work that," Becca muttered.

"Butchers bill mercifully short," replied Kovac.

"Won't have to listen to Grey's guitar practice for a while," Becca said.

"Aye, hopefully Frank won't be able to save all his function in that arm."

This is a human habit, making cruel comments to alleviate a situation, they call it humour, or friendship.

Armoured vehicles poured out of a group of hills attacking the Bartuq.

"Oh fuck, what's this fart-waffle?" Asked Gilly as he joined the two officers.

Kovac cursed softly, "It's the Earth Defence Corps."

"What are the EDC doing? What are they doing here? Fucking cowboys," Becca asked.

"Forget that, that's, what? Three squadrons? Of bloody interceptor class Chimera armoured light cav, that means they must have deployed at batallion level, so they have at least a regiment of support infantry, two? They must have more armour and combat support arms to support that too...they've either deployed a goddamn Brigade of troops to this rock or they're even more incompetent than I give credit." Kovac said, his voice stunned.

"So the cannon fodder have come in strength, what else is new? If they didn't deploy a brigade to do a platoon's job they wouldn't be able to lose as many men as they like to do," Becca said shrugging.

"No, they've deployed a brigade of human troops on the border of Xhost held territory!" Kovac said, turning around and looking at the sky, "you can't do that quietly."

"Kov, does it matter? I mean..." Gilly was turning to Kovac but cut off as the Major turned and ran down the slope.

I've seen human panic and fear, I've also seen humans overcome that fear and direct it. This seemed to be what Kovac was doing

The Major was using his communicator, "all units return to the FOB, immediate withdrawal."

Gilly turned to Becca and gave a questioning gesture after Kovac, but Becca wasn't looking. She was staring at the sky.

Half a dozen Xhost warbirds were dropping in from low orbit, they dropped low over the EDC and began firing into the Chimera squadrons.

Becca had turned and streaked away, Gilly opened his communicator up and started calling instructions to Griffin Battery.

A dreadnought class Xhost ship broke atmospher and I looked up on time to see a cloudburst, a dark, stinking rain fell across the savannah and onto the foliage the Dark Horses were retreating into, I felt it hit my exterior and it burned, I slowed and as more drops hit I blacked out.

I could hear voices, human voices.

"You both look ridiculous," laughed a familiar voice.

"Good to see you weren't caught in it."

"Listen, the implication that I had found somewhere to take a nap is a vicious rumour spread by my political enemies," that voice again.

"So you avoided it and Kovac avoided it but the rest of us got soaked, including the professor," said a third voice.

"Did it have any effect on you lot?"

"Made my eyes stream," said the second voice, a woman's.

The first voice, must be Wolf I realised, "lot of red eyes."

"Stinks and makes you cry, hardly a dangerous weapon," the third vice said.

"Killed the Bartuq survivors and a few drops overwhelmed the professor," said Gilly.

"So...what is it?" Asked Becca.

"Kovac says it's propenyl sulfenic acid, according to Petra."

"Sulfenic...onion juice!?"

"Basically," Wolf said apologetically.

"Explains why I'm craving hotdogs," said Gilly.

"So, what? They've used their bio-weapons and it gave me cravings, the Xhost aren't as tough as I remember them," Wolf said.

"Except, they've landed and formed a beachhead. Kovac has contacted the general for support...till then we're on our own, the onion juice devastated the Towoli numbers."

It should come as no shock that some of the galaxy's most potent biochemical weapons have been harnessed by humans for food, drink and recreation. Nicotinoid, cannabinoid, capsaicin ethanol and goitrin and thyocyanates. All accepted toxins in the human diet.

#humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #space faerie #space australia #space orcs #earth is a deathworld #this is why i call kovac daddy #kovac #dark horses

[sirro85-blog]

Dark Horses 4

Becca jerked awake as Kovac tossed in his sleep, he was drenched in sweat and as she reached out for him Kovac sat upright with a gasp, he looked around wildly and then a shudder seemed to pass through him. Becca reached a hand out to touch his shoulder, he flinched violently and stumbled out of the bed, there was a crash as he overturned a bedside table.

"It's ok, it's ok, baby it was only a dream," Becca hurried round the bed to his side, Kovac turned to her, nude and gleaming with sweat, his eyes were wide and he was still shaking.

The door burst open and Knickers was in the doorway, a pistol in her right hand supported on her left wrist, in her left hand was a long bladed knife. She scanned the room and on seeing Kovac, his back to the room his muscles taut and his breathing heavy she lowered the weapons and hurriedly crossed the room.

"Same dream big man?" She asked softly.

Kovac blinked and looked down at her, He nodded mutely and let her reach up and hook her fingers round the back of his neck, she pulled his head down so their foreheads touched. They paused like this for barely a moment and then pulled apart, Knickers nodded to Becca and turned for the door.

Becca stared after the soldier for a moment and then turned to Kovac who looked calmer again. "You alright?" She handed him a glass of water.

Kovac took a drink and nodded, "I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

"One of these days you're going to explain to me why I have no problem with you and Knickers sharing a naked cuddle in our bedroom...does she know what your dreams are about?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't I? Look I love the woman but I've known you longer, we go back to the academy."

Kovac closed his eyes for a moment and then turned to face Becca directly, "When you and Wolf and all our old friends were settling into your first commands I was burying a wife and child and when she..." he pointed after Knickers and then paused, "we've been through a lot together and we've helped each other out."

"Ok, are you alright now? Do you want to talk? Look if the dream keeps happening maybe we should retire, you've been through enough surely."

"I sleep fine after battles Bex, that has never been my problem, I'm alright," he kissed her, "Thank you, I might go down to the gym, not going to sleep much more tonight."

Dawn found Becca sitting with Wolf watching Kovac in the ring, "didn't fancy facing him yourself today?"

Wolf shook his head, "No fear, not in this mood, I'll stay out of his way."

In the ring stood Ty a soldier from Captain Dorman's 3 Troop and probably the largest man in the squadron, nearly equal in height to Kovac's 6 and a half feet, he was bigger in build, the Major and Trooper had enjoyed a competative sparring rivalry since their days in the 88th.

The two men circled one another, and locked up, Ty's dark black skin contrasting against the white of Kovac's hair as the Major was forced to one knee. The watching crowd stood and roared it's approval as the Major had to break free.

Becca could barely see as she heard the shouts of the soldiers.

"That's it Ty batter him, don't let him out of the corner, keep the pressure on,"

"He's gone southpaw Ty, look out!"

"No, move quicker, don't let him circle you like that!"

"No stop him moving, lock it up, use your strength."

Wolf who was standing on his chair looked like he was close to joining in he was so animated, "god Kovac is quick, COME ON TY!, GO ON SON PIN HIM IN THE CORN....OOooooh."

Becca clambered onto her chair to look over the heads in front, Ty was staggering backwards but unloaded a thunderous right hook that Kovac ducked under before straightening and with a jump bringing his own left cross into the side of Ty's jaw. Ty dropped to his knees clearly dazed and Kovac applied a sleeper hold, it was over moments later.

When the two officers reached the front Kovac was shaking hands with Ty who was in full flow explaining the origin of the term "southpaw".

That afternoon in Kovac's office after Staff King had been by to reprimand the Major for injuring himself and a trooper Kovac delivered the news everyone had been expecting.

"We've been back for long enough, time to go out to Fo-ro-shall and deal with the Bartuq. Gilly is content with the set up out there although he would like some bigger guns...wouldn't we all."

"The sergeant-major has been briefing the sergeants so stay out of their way, let them do their jobs and look closely at the new info Gilly sent back."

"Bartuq pirates are a nuisance out there but isn't it more of a concern that any troop movement out there is going to stir up the Xhost? Do we need permission to carry out our operation?" Becca asked, it was a question she had asked before.

"That's being handled." Kovac replied.

The exact solution to the issue was revealed the day after the Dark Horses had deployed en masse to Fo-ro-shall the Towoli planet. Kovac was sitting with Wolf when Capt ain Gillespie arrived with two others in tow.

Wolf saw them coming and stood, Kovac turned and copied his Captain.

Gillespie stopped and turned to introduce the man on his right, "Major I'm sure you're pleased to make the reacquaintance of Staff Sergeant Sam White, call sign 'Ugly', Gunner extraordinaire of Griffin Battery and," said Gillespie turning to his left, "needs no introduction but I like saying it; Brigadier-General Michaela Jones."

The four officers shook hands, "Major, how are my soldiers?" The general asked.

"Well ma'am, it's good to see you," Kovac said to the small heavy set woman opposite.

"Your soldiers ma'am?" Ugly asked.

"Oh not anymore, not since Kovac stole them," Michaela replied with a grin.

"Still your soldiers ma'am, like their OC they'd follow you anywhere, I'd have invaded Hell if you'd led the way"

"I think with two more of you I could conquer it, but I think the day this lot were anything but yours is long gone, gone up in Aprasi smoke," the general said taking a seat.

"That's right I heard about this, you were on Doltoi-4 when the Korlax attacked and you received orders to retreat," Ugly said leaning out of his seat to point at Kovac.

"The Aprasi had declined membership to the Galactic Council and so were not entitled to our defence was the decision, so when the Korlax Dominion struck and were systematically wiping out whole villages we were told to retreat to Council space." Kovac said.

"The Major here, fresh from whatever heroics he'd pulled in the Reinax system decided he wasn't going anywhere." Michaela said with a faint smile.

"We'd been there as an envoy, a good faith mission, 1st batallion the 88th Combat Engineers had been constructing some new planetary docks as a hearts&minds effort," Gillespie said, staring into the night, "we saw first hand what the Korlax were doing."

"I saw the parents of the Aprasi young form a living wall between the Korlax and the creche...mothers and fathers facing down war machines, so I decided I was going to have their backs." Kovac said a little harshly.

"And you pinched a batallion of combat engineers to do it," the general teased.

"I ordered my men off the planet and then I went about my business," Kovac said calmly.

"To a man, the 88th followed Kovac," said Gillespie proudly.

"I heard that because a whole batallion defected they couldn't hold all those courts marshal so they just let you all go as a band of mercenaries?" Ugly queried.

"With the help of a sympathetic Brigadier," Kovac said nodding to the general, "it was bad press, hero humans save the day and get charged."

"Human pack-bonding is how it was sold to the media," said the General.

"It wasn't, was just the right thing to do," said Kovac, "We were engineers, ubique, quo fas et gloria ducunt and all that, seemed the right thing to do. So I reformed the survivors into a squadron and we became the Dark Horses, the Brigadier as she was then made sure we were looked after."

Michaela waved the comment away and gave a gesture to the darkness, "what is the situation here Major? What are you dealing with?"

"Short version? The Towoli are getting raided by the Bartuq and the presence of the Xhost border is stopping any involvement of the GCDF, nobody wants to rile up the zealots. We've been approached to deal with the raiders."

"It's unlikely the Xhost will take offence at the presence of a mercenary unit but I'll do what I can to ensure them we have no intent to increase our presence here."

"And the presence of the EDC near Thresh?" Kovac asked.

"Is not the purview of a mercenary leader nor of a Combat Engineers Squadron leader," the general replied a little abruptly.

Kovac and Gilly shared a glance and Gilly turned to Ugly, "you know Kovac is with Becca? Uhh Captain Hayward?"

Talk moved away from the past to the present and the future, and thoughts moved away from the violence that was to come.

Dawn broke on a cold grey morning, the Dark Horses shivered through stand to, and then broke camp and the three troops were moved into position.

Captain Gillespie looked through his omni-goggles and called positions through his comms, 1 troop advanced quietly as 3 troop pushed forward hard, racing to get in position.

For a minute there was peace and then the silence of the morning splintered as Griffin Battery opened their first volley, directed to their targets by Captain Gillespie one more time, in the years since they had worked together Ugly and his men had lost none of their skill and in the 10s flight time of the first shell the guns sounded twice more, in less than a minute the 18 targets were reduced to rubble and Griffin Battery fell silent.

On the sound of the first gun Captain Dorman led his men out, the guns sounded their last retort as Gray led his men through the new breech. The outer defences reduced to rubble Wolf led his men forward into the killing ground and as the Bartuq defenders opened fire 2 Troop started to hammer their position. Gillespie directed howitzer fire to the centre of the Bartuq defences, many of the shells were deflected off but they were enough to limit the Bartuq defence.

Inside the Bartuq fortifications Captain Dorman and his men were hard pressed, Dorman knelt over the wounded trooper Ito shielding him from further harm. He shouted orders and directed fire as the defender's numbers started to count against his men. Aware he was being flanked Dorman pulled some of his men back and raced round the edge of a building.

Attacking a group of armed aggressors with hand to hand combat was not wise or logical but it was unexpected and would hopefully buy his men the time they needed to receive the back up from Wolf. Besides Dorman was a human and that counted for something, the Bartuq would be more afraid that humans were attacking than they would by superior numbers, or so he hoped.

Hearing the approach of the Bartuq unit Dorman closed his eyes and repeated the only prayer he thought might work, "God I hope I live through this."

As they rounded the corner the Bartuq were met by a single human, armed with a knife and a side arm he dropped the first three amphibians before the creatures could react. Dorman did not have the skill of Wolf nor the speed and power of Kovac but he was a human, powered by human adrenaline and fear and he was frantic. By keeping in their midst he neutralized their weapons but he couldn't do much about their numerical advantage, his attack lasted nearly 30 seconds and he injured over a dozen before they knocked him off his feet and the shots rang out.

Dorman had his hands over his head when Fluke reached him, "sorry sir, couldn't open fire till you were down or we may have hit you. We're in sir, Captain Wolf asks if you can regroup your men and move to the west post for the next advance to contact."

Dorman thanked the sergeant, took a moment to ensure he was bullet free and turned to find his men, Sergeant Webb had them in position when he joined them, the career soldier gave his commanding officer a nod and dropped back.

The Dark Horses pushed through the defences of the Bartuq meeting stiff resistance but only suffering minor casualties. Wolf and Dorman used their troops to good effect, capturing choke points and stopping the enemy from organising.

The humans didn't have it all their own way, the Bartuq rallied and counter attacked cutting off a small group of soldiers, the attack itself was stopped by Captain Becca's 2 Troop who were moving behind the two advance troops for precisely that reason. Communications relayed the situation, Kovac had been cut off with three soldiers, Ty, Costa and Butlanska.

"We can't cut our way out, but we can hole up till you push through, over" Kovac assured his concerned Captains.

"Wolf is going to hold position, Dorman and I will push through together and get to you, over" Becca said, she lowered her communications device and gestured at her Sergeant "why was Kovac that far advanced!?" Knickers gave a shrug.

"Negative, maintain the advance, this is what they want, they want to break us up and big us down, maintain the advance, Wolf must keep pushing forward. We can hold until Dorman gets to us, 2 Troop must maintain the screen, acknowledge, over" Kovac's voice came over the communicator.

Becca swore, "confirmed, continue advance, over,"

"We're secure here, we're able to..." Kovac cut off.

"Kovac!?" Becca sent the call repeatedly.

"Wait. out," came the terse reply.

Kovac and Costa flattened against the wall as the Bartuq hurried past, Kovac growled in irritation, "these counters are going to keep happening unless they keep the pressure in and we'll end up just rescuing people all day."

"Can we not fight through sir?" Costa asked.

"Not bloody likely, we can still be a thorn in their arse though, god knows you and Ty have enough practice..." Kovac broke off as two Bartuq rounded the corner.

Costa raised his rifle but lowered it as Kovac sprang into the gap, he drove his body into the Bartuq on his right and stabbed out with his long bladed knife at the amphibian on the left. He rounded on the winded Bartuq and stabbed it through the skull.

The two humans fell back to the room Ty and Butlanska were concealed in, both were nursing injuries, neither life threatening but enough to put them at risk if attacked. Kovac checked them both and returned to the doorway.

"Listen Costa, the only way we stop them from clearing us out is by making them think we are more than two non-injured soldiers. That means no extended firefights, get in close and personal. Side arm and that damn kukri I'm not supposed to know you carry," Kovac clapped a hand on his shoulder, "you're quicker and faster than the Bartuq but remember they outweigh us, a frog your size will have significant weight on you so avoid a wrestling match."

"Sir I'm not sure I'm up to this, I'm not you or Captain Wolf or Sergeant Knickers." Costa said weakly.

"You're afraid? Good, fear makes you quick, human adrenaline is a black market drug in the outer rim," Kovac turned to face Costa, "stick a collar on that beast in your chest and ride it till we're done. If you want to keep waking up with Ty and sneaking back to your own room then you'd best fight to keep them away from that room, and trooper while we're on the subject, it's been 3 years, you're a couple just accept it." With that Kovac leapt out on three Bartuq.

For the rest of his life Costa remembered that afternoon as a blur, the Bartuq seemed to move at quarter speed and all the while he battled a fear that threatened to overwhelm him.

When Sergeant Knickers led a sortie into the tunnels they found dozens of Bartuq dead, Kovac was covered head to toe in the purplish blood of the Bartuq, Costa imagined he must look similar. The Major gave him a nod before heading off to meet with his captains.

The Bartuq had suffered heavy casualties and lost much of their equipment, their heavily defended compound was captured but two more bolt holes had been found and would need clearing before they could go home.

It's a subject of much debate wether humans are the galaxy's best warriors. Many would say the Flet are superior and it's accepted that the Rhul are both stronger and faster, certain other races like the Frell possess weapons of mass destruction to rival the human's.

In my experience humans don't all possess an affinity for war, but those trained to do it can tap into a level of ingenuity and physical capability that no other race possess.

#humans are space australians #humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #space faerie #space australia #space orcs #earth is a deathworld #dark horses #this is why i call kovac daddy #kovac

[sirro85-blog]

Dark Horses 3

Becca felt a bead of sweat run down her face and felt it run onto her top lip, as she panted heavily it must have caught on her breath because she saw the drop fly though the air. Out of options she fell backwards and rolled desperately to her left kicking out, there was a solid connection and her on rushing attacker stumbled, Becca had a moments glimpse of an exposed jaw as both arms shot out to break their fall, she snapped out a heel and felt the crack as it made connection.

"Fucking lucky!" Yelled Sergeant Knickers from the edge of the ring as Petra jumped up to check on Barbie.

"No kidding, shit she's fast," Becca lay flat on her back gasping for breath, "I need to stop relying on being taller than all of you."

"Yes, you do," said Kovac, "you need to remember what are stopping blows and what are just pointless combatives that look pretty."

"Like you're a shining beacon of variety Mr I'll-just-punch-them-into-submission. Get in the ring and show me something that isn't counter striking," Panther jeered vaulting the ropes and beckoning Kovac.

"Hardly a fair fight, I've got damn near a foot in height on you and I'm probably twice your weight, not sure this is gonna prove much," Kovac said waving her off. "Besides I've proven it repeatedly, I can't hit girls, I remember those nuns who raised me and I can't do it."

"If we get Dorman down later?" Asked Becca.

"Oh him I'll hit," Kovac agreed, "sergeant-major, a word," he called to Panther.

"Wolf has been in touch, Fluke has successfully defended three transports. It shouldn't come as a surprise that it's the Galax. Its always a smash and grab job, any organised defence and they give up." Kovac said as he walked down the hallway, Panther having to scurry a little to keep up.

"Wolf has asked if a second troop can join him, I'm going to go out to the Towoli and take a look at the situation with the Bartuq. 2 Troop will accompany me and Gilly's aux troop is going to go out and get set up. Dorman and 3 Troop will stay here and move out to assist Wolf if necessary." Kovac pushed open his door and gave his sergeant-major a nod.

"Yes sir, And you want me to..." Panther felt her voice have a slight upwards inflection as she spoke annoyed at her uncertainty.

"To oversee all this and keep it off my desk sergeant-major."

The door closed, Panther cursed inwardly, this new position kept overwhelming her, she had served under Kovac to one degree or another for over 10 years now but this was the closest she had ever worked with him and suddenly she found him intimidating and found herself unsure around him.

Panther was heading for her office when she met Knickers, the taller woman was looking the other way as she approached and in profile the thin cheeks and slender nose made her seem particularly striking, as she so often did Panther's eyes traced the scars on Knicker's forearms.

"Sir," Knickers turned to Panther, "the captain said you'd have orders."

"Yes, 2 Troop will be heading out to the Towoli with the Major, as will 4 Troop, the auxiliaries, let Staff Frank know will you?"

"First deployment, uhh, any advice?" Knickers asked.

"Talk to the captain if you have any questions and rely on your section commanders and their 2IC, remember your job is to see them do their job, not do it for them and don't worry, you were given this job for a reason," Panther realised she should take her own advice.

Wolf nodded as Dorman entered the room, he gestured at the table and said, "you get a look at the plans on the journey?"

"Yeah, looks solid, we can probably push through their defences before you swing in, means it makes more sense for you to roll up behind us and break their centre." Dorman said.

"If you think so, you'll need to hammer them in that first assault though, we need to be amongst them before they know it or they'll rabbit."

"You worry about drawing them in, let me worry about the attack," Dorman replied, "Now, more importantly, did you know Sharon was married!?"

Wolf stared at his friend for a few moments and closed his eyes, "dude..." he said his voice pained, "in three months she never once had you round to hers, she had a patch of lighter skin on one finger and never used her communications when around you." Wolf stared into middle distance, "I think at this point bud, just assume you're catnip to bored, married women."

"I swear I'm not looking for married women!" Dorman said rather pathetically in Wolf's opinion.

"Look, I don't know what to tell you, maybe ask them outright? You're not the sort of guy who wants to date married women, you're not amoral...you're not Kovac but you are gonna get your ass shot if you keep sleeping with these women, especially on Pelcar-3."

"That's a bit hard on Kov, dude wasn't intentionally sleeping with married women," Dorman said.

"No he just slept with anyone he could and didn't care...Look at some point the five of us will sit down with some drinks and we can argue the right and wrong of sleeping with married people and we can all laugh at Becca as she ties herself in knots trying to justify being the other woman to both the husband and wife but as far as I'm concerned if you know someone's married they should be off limits. Now, are your troop ready to start a dry run or do you want some time?"

Dorman had a few more moments of looking wretched, "No it's fine I'll dig Sergeant Webb out and we'll start an exercise."

Sergeant Glover didn't like it when his men had to stop being soldiers, he had no regrets in the choices he had made in his life and he would always be proud of the loyalty in his heart but when soldiers turned mercenaries were asked not just to take off uniform but to start playing sneaks he was unhappy. That being said, Captain Wolf's plan was sound and more importantly Major Kovac had signed off on it.

"Ty, Costa you two are no longer soldiers but that doesn't give either of you leave to carry bowie knives on your damn belt," Webb snapped.

"Interestingly sir did you know that the bowie knife was named for the man who carried it not it's creator and the man it was named for may have been mostly fiction infact..." Ty began but was cut off by Sergeant Webb.

"Not now damn it Ty, a bayonet is enough, who needs so many damn blades?"

Sergeant Glover watched this exchange and knew the response before it came.

"Major Kovac carries karambit knives and so does Captain Wolf, I've seen Captain Becca carry 3 or 4 Wasp axes," Costa started up, "Not to mention Corpo I mean Sergeant Knickers carrying..."

Webb cracked his fist into the table top, his voice cold and hard, "when the operation is over, you will come to me and we will discuss the addition of equipment to your standard issue, until that time, take off the damn blades."

Glover knew this would happen, once you left the army rules were harder to maintain, order could be lost. His own men knew that to carry a non-issue weapon they had to prove they knew how to use it which is why most carried a bayonet and why the captain carried a BC-41 and a push dagger on top of the karambit knives the men knew about.

Webb joined him shaking his head, "I dunno Fluke, why do they all want to be Rumble? What's that stupid phrase the SM says?"

Glover winced at the mispronounced name, "it's Rambo, and the SM says "guns for a show, knives for a pro."

Webb shook his head again and glared at Ty and Costa, "If those two weren't my best I'd kill them and bury their bodies to save me my misery."

"Problem is Captain Dorman finds 'em funny," Fluke said as close as he'd ever get to criticising the commissioned officers he'd grown to trust.

Webb grunted and started to move off, "Fluke once we're in you'll need to come hard to keep the roll going."

Glover nodded, certain things didn't need saying in his opinion.

Wolf watched as the raider vessels came alongside the freighter, for the first time since he'd started defence they were able to pull alongside and dock. Within minutes they were on-board and moving deck to deck. Timing in his head, Wolf guessed that Glover must have moved into position, he signalled Dorman that 1 Troop were on the move.

The transmitter chirruped as Wolf's message arrived, "alright!" Dorman shouted, "the raiders are engaged, time to take out their bolt hole before they know it's engaged."

3 Troop were moving quickly, Dorman pulled his men forward while 3 section dropped back with Sergeant Webb, this first part needed to be quick and quiet.

Wolf watched as Fluke and his section sprang the trap, the Galax raiders had fallen back towards their vessels as soon as the Dark Horses had engaged, and now as they neared them Fluke - already secured their ships - struck from the rear cutting through their numbers.

The second message from Wolf confirmed they were on route, Dorman gave the command and his men launched their assault. The design of the Galax position meant that the only way in was a frontal assault but human weapons and munitions should blast through the entrance and then it should be a case of room to room and making sure the Galax couldn't escape with their equipment to continue raiding, in those close quarters the Dark Horses training should do the job.

Dorman watched as Gray led his fire team forward and placed detonators. In position now Dorman saw no point in delaying, he gave the signal.

Wolf willed the distance to close as they sped towards the Galax position, now they had engaged he had more doubts about allowing them to assault in two waves, as they slowed he sprang from his seat, Fluke moving too. They found a young riflewoman at the breach, alone.

"Mfene, isn't it?" Wolf asked, "where's your dual?" Soldiers were never left isolated like this in combat.

"Ito is inside, went in to protect the medics sir," Mfene answered.

"The medics are inside!?" Wolf bit back a curse and ran forward.

The Galax compound was basic in its layout, built into a cliff face it had a high fortified wall that Dorman had breached with a centre compound filled with the Galax raiding vehicles, behind which three tunnels ran off, the centre tunnel was known to be more heavily fortified. Dorman's men were supposed to be in the left and right tunnels but possibly a third of them were engaged in a firefight with the centre tunnel defences.

Wolf pulled up as he scanned the fight, Dana and the other medics were in one corner they seemed to have half a dozen patients, two Riflemen stood guard over them. By all evidence the remaining soldiers were in the two other tunnels.

"Banjarjee take two section and sweep the two outer tunnels, O'Shea with me, clear the outer defences of the central tunnels, Flowers, 3 section should be prepared to provide fire support. GO!"

O'Shea ran forward, Wolf close behind him, as they reached the combatants Wolf signalled to Sergeant Webb who gestured his acknowledgement of the plan and had his men pull away from the centre, smoke grenades and other ordinance sailed through the air and with a roar the men of 1 troop launched themselves into the tunnel.

The fight was bloody but over quickly, the injury count was less following the second wave but still over a dozen troopers were needing medical treatment back on base.

Little was said as the Galax vehicles were destroyed and their weapons confiscated. With the loss of their attack vehicles the surviving Galax would be arrested by local authorities and usually moved on to less criminal activities provided no other raiders tried to recruit them.

The journey back to Pelcar-3 was subdued, word passed that Kovac and 2 Troop had returned following the officers reports from the Galax engagement.

Once returned to the Dark Horses compound Wolf pulled his men to a debrief in a separate corner leaving 3 troop to handle their own injured and return certain kit to stores. Dorman was checking weapons back into the lockers when the Quartermaster approached him.

"When you're done here Hero, the Major wants to see you in his office," the derision in her voice was stronger than normal.

"I'll be there after I've checked on my men in med-bay," Dorman replied, not looking up.

"I'd avoid Staff King right now Hero, and I'd not be late for Kovac, I believe it's an interview without coffee," growled the Qm.

Dorman stared after her as around him a slight muttering spread among the men, turning to his sergeant Dorman asked Webb to take over the checking off.

Ten minutes later Dorman knocked on Kovac's door, for once closed. Inside Kovac sat behind his desk, unusual for a man who tended to sit on his desk as often as use it.

"You changed the plan, I understand it was your choice though Captain Wolf was at pains to tell me he agreed." Kovac didn't greet his captain.

"Yes sir, I assessed the enemy's strengths and concluded my troop capable of the task, which they were, I believe we would have been successful with or without the support of 1 Troop."

"You believe...this isn't 1914 Captain, we don't measure success by numbers dead, them more than us? Oh it's a victory. You believe..."

"I believed my men capable of..."

"You believed," said Kovac raising his voice for the first time as he stood up, "The hype, you believed our own propaganda," Kovac put on a sing-song voice, "Humans we're bigger, badder, rougher and tougher, believe me brother their ain't no other," his voice changed to one high and clear with careful enuncuation, "hard to stop and impossible to kill the human is a deathworlder that is capable of preternatural feats," Kovac's voice returned to normal, "damn it Dorman, you behaved like...like we're damn space orcs, expendable in numbers and unbreakable to boot, we may sell ourselves to the galaxy as the interstellar hobgoblin but we know different, we're professional and highly trained. That was bloody amateur hour."

Kovac took a long breath, and sitting down, "Dorman you're a good officer but you have a tendency to think you can do it all, and at times that's good, but you cannot put my men's lives on the line like that again. I would suggest you pay the injured soldiers bonus from your own pocket and a sizeable donation to the fund would be advisable. If you're feeling particularly contrite perhaps letting Wolf punch your teeth out in the ring would be a good idea?"

Dorman looked as though he wanted to reply but stopped himself, he nodded and turned to leave then stopped, "I'm sorry sir, I know you hate your men getting injured, I genuinely believed it was a smart play."

Kovac sighed, "I know you did mate, find that balance between impulse and hesitancy, remember to take a breath and re-evaluate and you'll be a great leader of men. Better angels and all that."

Dorman nodded and left the room.

#humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #space faerie #space australia #space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #earth is a deathworld #this is why i call kovac daddy #kovac #dark horses

[sirro85-blog]

Dark Horses 2

Captain Becca stood in the main square of the Dark Horses compound staring at an office door, she shook her head and turned away, moving to sit with a group of other off duty soldiers.

"I don't want to go in, she fuckin' scares me," Becca said pouting.

"You need to return the petty cash you checked out, you need to go in," said Panther unsympathetically, "I mean if you'd taken me I'd return it but as you left me behind..."

"But I didn't spend it, Kovac did, I just collected it," she pouted again, "Wolf, you need to request some new kit for your troop don't you, can you return the petty cash at the same time?" There was a wheedling tone to her voice.

"Not a bloody chance, she already calls me Rat and half the time she refuses my request before I make it, I'm not pissing her off more than I need to."

"Rat!? Ha ha, that's amazing, I sort of see why though," Becca laughed.

"What does she call you then?" Panther asked, eyeing Becca suspiciously.

"Captain, sometimes Becca...alright fine she calls me Stilts and she always glares at my legs like I'm tall on purpose."

"She calls me brat," sighed Panther.

"She has a nickname for everyone, I'm amazed she remembers them all, the only people she is ever nice to are Knickers and Kovac," Dorman said matter of factly.

Three heads turned to look at Dorman, "and what does she call you Mark?" Asked Becca.

"Uhhh, Hero," answered Dorman with a slight mumble.

"Really!? That's not so bad," said Wolf.

"It is the way she says it," Dorman said dully.

Becca stood, squared her shoulders and walked toward the door marked 'RQ' with a deep breath she pushed the door open.

"Stilts," came the grunt, "What do you need this time? Another set of uniformsmade to order?" A glare at her lower limbs, "impossibly long legs!"

"Uhh no, I, uhh see I just have this 36" inside leg and none of the standard uniforms fit my leg and my waist...but no, not today Quartermaster, today I just wanted to return your petty cash." She fumbled the roll as she passed it over, dropping it and stooping to pick it up, as she straightened the Quartermaster looked over her shoulder.

"Hello Sweet, how are you? What do you need?" The Qm asked in a warm voice.

"Just in to see you Leese, been missing you," Knickers replied warmly leaning over the counter to kiss the enormous woman on the cheek.

Becca backed away hoping she might escape with Knickers distracting the Qm, one glare from the woman who was as wide as she was tall froze Becca where she stood.

"Take a seat in the office and make a brew, I'll deal with Stilts here and be through."

"Oh be nice to Bex, she ruined her best shoes by stabbing a guy with them when we were away," Knickers waved at the Qm as she disappeared into the back office.

Becca almost called out for Knickers not to leave her as Lisa the Quartermaster's sharp eyes snapped from Becca's face to the roll of petty cash, instantly spotting it was smaller. Her dirty red ponytail seemed to bristle and grow as the Qm advanced on the Captain.

"Another bar fight Stilts and let me guess you paid for the damages?"

Why was this woman so intimidating? Becca felt sweat drip down her back, of all the terrifying beings in existence; Lisa the Quartermaster of the mercenary unit known as the Dark Horses was the only one she had ever known to freeze the very marrow in her bones.

"Yes," she squeaked.

The Qm glared and then pulled out her ledger and looking at Becca -who was hoping against hope that she hadn't started to sway where she stood- traced her finger down the paperwork. Paper who in this century used paper!?

Just as Becca thought the silence and the sighs punctuating it were going to make her start weeping the door flew open and in walked Major Kovac.

"Hello mother," he said beaming at her, "need to order some ordinance, got the numbers here."

"Troop, POUR ANOTHER ONE SWEET, TROOP IS HERE," Lisa bellowed through to Knickers.

"Is Knix here aswell? I'll stop for a cup then, gonna need a quarter's worth RQ,"

"I'm not a Regimental Quartermaster anymore," Lisa said wagging a finger.

"And I'm not commander of a single troop anymore and Knix hasn't been sweet for longer than I hate to think, but you call me troop and I call you mother and you'll always be my RQ, now, let's get that cup and order a shipment."

"A shipment now?" Her eyes narrowed, "how much are we talking?"

"Ordinance, weapons...all in...a million?"

"A million!? I quit."

"No you don't, you'll never leave me, Captain what are you doing here, haven't you got men to oversee?" Kovac suddenly addressed Becca.

"Yes sir," she replied immediately.

"Well hop to," Becca forced her numb legs to work and as the door swung shut she heard Kovac saying, "relax mother, we have a contract."

Becca walked while warmth returned to her body. She had always thought she knew Kovac as long as anyone but she forgot that while she had met him at the academy his first deployment had been without her and that seemed to be the point where Lisa had "adopted" him and Knickers had come back from that campaign with her new nickname, one that stuck to this day.

Becca stopped her walking infront of 1 troop who were formed up and being inspected by Sergeant Glover, the Sergeant snapped to attention and snapped off a salute. "Leave to carry on ma'am, please"

"Carry on sergeant," Becca didn't salute as she wasn't in uniform.

She stood watching as Fluke studied the ranks, moving up and down scowling as he found minor faults, of all the soldiers in the Dark Horses, Fluke seemed to miss the military settings most of all.

"Fluke got the guard posting?" Said a voice behind her.

Becca turned to her Sergeant and shrugged, "yes, Wolf wanted it, he wants to see who is running the raids and scope them out."

"Thought you'd want it, considering, or Dorman he's more suited to defence than either of you," Panther continue.

Becca shrugged again, "Major wanted us here, we've got another rep coming, wants us there."

"Another rep? We're looking for more work?"

"That business with the Flet really ate into our reserves," Becca explained, this time it was Panther's turn to shrug as the two walked off.

It was the early hours of evening when Major Kovac was sitting with his remaining officers and sergeants, the Towoli representative walked in. He gave an approximation of a human bow, his hide gleaming dark red and green the Towoli colours of accord.

"May the two rivers always flow to you," the representative said, "I am Gethrev, of the Towoli settlers on Rivers-enough-to-support-life-but-not-enough-to-flourish-fully-it-has-tactical-benefits,"

Kovac blinked at the garbled name and adjusted his translator, "Welcome Gethrev of Fol-ro-shall, may the two rivers never run dry," he completed the traditional Towoli greeting.

"Major Kovac, I come to request your assistance, the settlements on Fol-ro-shall are subject to raids from Bartuq and, I regret our forces are not enough to both resist them and seek them out. When we saw the magnitude of the task, there was only one name on our list. The Dark Horses of Major Kovac."

"No there wasn't," Kovac fired back, "If there was only one name then you're fools and I don't work for fools, if you had more than one name then you've been to at least three of them already as you've already had to pass them to reach Pelcar-3." He leaned forward in his seat, "I know the human playbook says we are susceptible to flattery but it should also say we can see through it."

He stood and gestured to an adapted seat, one suited to the tentacle like lower limbs of the Towoli.

"Crossing off the Rhul as the Towoli won't work with them and the Flet are self aware enough to know this task is ill suited to them you approached Ovette who won't risk her men against, well anything anymore, Bayrun the Karnac lacks the resources but I bet it took him a long time to admit it.

That means you went to Daniels, and Danny boy, he has the man power but he took one look at the defences and realised he was out of their league. Which means you looked at the bottom of your list, the expensive end and you saw the humans only one system away and you took a look at our prices and decided to see why we charge so much. Am I close?"

Gethrev had taken the offered seat and looked at the Major, "the Karnac was most frustrating," as he muttered his hide blurred to purple, a sign of irritation, before returning to red and green, "yes, you are correct, you are the fourth to be approached but reputation says you will probably be our solution."

"You know our price?" Kovac asked and received an affirmative gesture and colour change, "we're expensive because we aren't just soldiers, we're combat engineers, artisan soldiers was the phrase, we can take the Bartuq but we expect the payment in two halves, one before and one after completion."

The Towoli gave a flash of bright colours as it stood to grip Kovac's hand, there were details to iron out but it sounded as though the Dark Horses had a second contract.

An hour later Kovac returned to his meeting looking tired but pleased. Sergeant Webb left with the contract to pass it to the Quartermaster.

"We need a clerk to sort these things," he said fatigued.

"We can find one, are you ready?" Becca responded.

"Yes, we can start now," Kovac turned to Panther.

"Sergeant, I'm promoting you, as of right now you are a sergeant-major, my right hand. Congratulations Panther,"

"Sir? What?" Said Panther in a startled voice.

"Sergeant-Major Panther, congratulations."

"But 2 Troop, Becca." The sergeant-major said confused.

"Knickers is my best section commander, she's going to be my 2IC now," Becca explained.

"Sergeant Knickers?" Panther said a little startled. "...she'll be great."

"Right then sergeant-major, I'll see you first thing," Kovac stood and shook her hand, Becca followed suit.

"Well done Pants, you'll be great!"

"Wolf knows already, he wanted to be here but...you know, congratulations sergeant-major, god knows you've earned it," said Captain Dorman shaking her hand.

Panther was left alone in the room, a smile on her face, "sergeant-major," she said in a voice mixed with pride and disbelief.

#humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are weird #humans are space oddities #space faerie #earth is a deathworld #earth is weird #earth is awesome #dark horses #kovac #this is why i call kovac daddy

[sirro85-blog]

Dark Horses: 1

Humans are unusual, in most other races the classification of attractiveness is simple. In the Flet it was size, the larger males and females were deemed more desirable. Amongst the Rhul the more colourful the skin the more attractive the potential mate, I could go on. With humans however it appears to be personal choice or perhaps I should say preference as humans don't get to choose who they find attractive.

Captain Becca was drawn to, in her words, "muscle bound dickheads" while Knickers preferred men who were less heavily muscled but extremely well groomed and Barbie preferred what she referred to as "pretty boys".

These three women were themselves all considered attractive but were physically all different (note that they were all of white European descent so their appearance was not as varied as humans can be) Becca was tall and had a slender build beneath her muscled frame. The two Cassidies Knickers and Barbie were very different in appearance. Knickers was slim and lightly built with delicate features; Barbie was named for her appearance, full figured with almost impossible proportions she was named for the old child's toy she so resembled.

Most fascinating to me was the response these physical appearances drew from others.

The soft "tock" "crack" of a snooker cue knocking two balls together was the background noise of the conversation as Becca watched Knickers clean up the table.

"I dunno, he's really handsome Knix but do you really want a guy that takes longer to get ready than you do?" They were discussing the liaison they were meeting with, one that Knickers had expressed appreciation of.

"Well now I know why Kovac always looks so rough, he's only got the time it takes for you to apply that one brand of eyeliner and put on some heels," laughed Barbie.

"Yeah but at least with Kovac, you know he can go all night," said Knickers in a knowing voice.

"How would you know?" Snapped Becca a little defensive.

"Oh not first hand but you forget I used to share a wall with Kovac, boy has stamina," Knickers and Barbie laughed at Becca's face.

"Well, you're not wrong," the Captain admitted grudgingly.

"At least you two get some eye candy, you don't see many of my type out here," Barbie said sulkily.

"We'll be back in Pelcar-3 soon enough and we'll all have something to look at," Becca said.

"Speaking of eye-candy, Bex somthin' for you to enjoy," Knickers said nodding to the bar.

Looking up Becca saw what Knickers was talking about, 12 soldiers of the Earth Defence Corps had just walked in.

"To look at maybe, I prefer my meatheads to be able to think...well now I do."

"No danger of that with this lot, they're not just EDC they're marines" muttered Barbie, she looked nervous.

The Earth Defence Corps was a partly private enterprise set up on earth when certain individuals and countries rejected the decision by the UN to entrust their military power to the Galactic Council. The EDC were founded to defend earth but since their inception has started to be used for "furthering the human cause" this usually meant trouble was close behind. Worst of all were the EDC marines the shocktroops of the corps, they viewed themselves as highly trained elites but most former UN troops called them "cannon fodder" and spoke of them with derision.

"That's game," said Knickers.

"That's me v Barbie to see who sucks more," said Becca.

"We all know that's your title sweet," said Barbie a little nastily.

"Being good at snooker is a legacy of a misspent youth," replied Becca haughtily.

"Right and we all know you spent your teenage years flat on your back with your ankles on your forehead." Knickers heckled, Barbie laughed so hard she spilled her drink.

Becca pouted and then glanced at the EDC soldiers, "where's Kovac and Wolf?"

"Relax Kovac won't let Wolf start a bar fight, he's responsible remember," Barbie said gesturing two tables over where the two men also played snooker.

"Sure, sober Kovac is responsible but let's not forget Bottle-of-Rum-Kovac is a mischievous deviant who takes great delight in upsetting people like local security forces, the Galactic Defence Air Command and the Korlax Dominion." Becca cautioned.

"True, Fun-Kovac would definitely enjoy embarrassing the EDC," Knickers agreed.

"You shouldn't call it Fun-Kovac, maybe Troubl-" Becca was cut off when one of the EDC marines pressed his groin against Barbie's backside as she bent over to take her shot.

As so often happened when humans grew violent I could not follow the flow of actions but one moment Barbie was bent over the snooker table and the marine was pressed up behind her and then Barbie was standing, the marine was face down on the table with the pool cue was jammed into the marine's throat turning him a purple colour and Barbie had a grip of the man's wrist, twisting it at a funny angle.

"Now I can only assume that as I found this hand in my skirt that it somehow belongs to me," Barbie said calmly into the sudden silence of the snooker hall. "Now I'm willing to return this hand perfectly undamaged if you promise to take it away and not bother me again...whimper pathetically if you agree."

Around the table a crowd had gathered, several EDC marines moved to help their friend but Wolf and Kovac were quick to block their way.

Barbie's victim stayed silent for a few more seconds before she applied a little more pressure to his arm and a wail escaped the marine's lips. "Good, all settled then," said Barbie and she shoved the marine away from her so he sprawled onto the floor, he received a kick to the rump as he struggled to his feet.

The marine regained his feet and nurses his arm for a moment before turning to regard the smaller woman before him. He appeared to gain some swagger back when he realised he was several inches taller and significantly heavier than Barbie.

He swore at Barbie and moved as if to grab her but she moved quicker, the snooker cue snapped out striking him in the throat and then as he staggered back Barbie connected a kick to the groin hard enough to lift him from the ground.

Chaos broke out, Kovac planted his forehead into the nearest marine and Wolf brought his drinking utensil into the face of his opponent. Knickers threw the snooker balls at the four marines approaching from the farside of the table, driving them back.

Becca backed up hurriedly as two marines closed on her. She staggered and flung up two hands, the marines paused, "wait, wait for God's sake these are 6 inch heels," and then delivered a kick to the closest marine's head that caught his jaw and snapped his head to the right and he dropped to the floor insensate, "even I need to get my balance right in these damn things," she said as the other marine rushed her. Becca fell back onto a table pulled both legs in and then kicked out hard, her left foot ineffectively struck the marine's arm but her right caught his thigh, her narrow heel puncturing his flesh and causing him to fall, Becca's swinging left foot caught him under the chin.

Wolf hurdled the snooker table to land crossbody on four marines sending them all sprawling, Barbie and Knickers had both used snooker cues to good effect beating two attackers down. Kovac was facing one more marine who appeared to be the leader, he eyed Kovac then drew a large knife from his belt. Kovac cast around for a weapon and realising nothing useful was near him stepped back and to his left putting an overturned stool between him and his armed opponent.

"Its a shame there isn't a fruit bowl here, you'd be amazed at what I can do with a pineapple," remarked Kovac.

The marine looked a little confused as Kovac edged back further muttering, "even a banana in a pinch," Kovac looked past the marine to the barman, "got any fruit?" He called.

"Fruit won't help," growled the marine.

"It'll keep you distracted," said Kovac as Becca hit the marine with a stool.

Only Wolf was still fighting, he was a blur of fists and feet as he pounded all four marines at once. Seeing his friends watching he stepped back, "take your friends and get out," he yelled gesturing at the various supine marines in the snooker hall, the bloodied marines gathered up their more unfortunate members and delarted.

Kovac paid for the damages and the friends left the bar.

"It's possible that we may live to regret upsetting the EDC," Wolf said as the five of them arrived at their rooms.

"God knows they regret pissing off Barbie," Kovac said.

"What are they doing this far out?" Wolf insisted.

"At a guess...The new colony on planet 1D.F7 will need security with its proximity to the Xhost controlled space. I think they're here for that."

"1D.F7? I'm no good with designations," Becca asked.

"They're calling it Thresh-28 as it's technically part of the Thresh system."

"That's a huge contract, it's going to be a major hub for this regions expansion, the Galactic Council won't employ EDC troops for that." Becca said.

"My guess...they will if the EDC are doing it cheap, and they will, they'll do it to get their foot in the door so they can take a pop at the Xhost, they haven't forgiven them for the incident with the Saturn defences. Once the EDC rile the Xhost up the Galactic Council will be forced to involve themselves to protect the Thresh and Galun systems. "

"Great so they're here looking for a fight and Barbie gave them one, good job Babs you saved the galaxy," Knickers laughed.

"Goodnight Knickers, Barbie, goodnight Captain," Kovac said steering Becca through the door to their rooms.

Humans unlike many races have the ability to overlook rational facts and logic and to trust opinions and their preferred versions of events to reality. Often they convince themselves that these alternative views are the "true" facts, such creatures would certainly be capable of starting a war over pride and imagined offence but I did not truly believe that even the EDC would look to provoke a war with the Xhost fanatics.

#dark horses #humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #earth is a deathworld #earth is weird #earth is awesome #space australia #space faerie #space orcs #this is why i call kovac daddy #kovac

[sirro85-blog]

Humans are Space Orcs: Improvising

So as I have described humans are ingenious and curious and they have the ability to look at a piece of fruit that tingles while you eat it and see a weapon. It goes further than that though. Humans can even look at a mistake and see success in another guise.

Major Kovac looked at his fellow officers and gave a gesture I had never seen him make before he spread his hands slowly and then brought his shoulders up.

"I think, that when we sent the last order the message got scrambled," ventured Captain Gillespie.

"Well I fucking hope so because I don't see how a request for 'artillery ammunition, medical supplies, rifle munitions and fuel' became 'water bottles, uniforms, pens, pencils, notepads, paperweights!? 150 Nyrex, assorted foodstuffs; and fuel'..." Kovac trailed off, "add to that the only supplies we have to begin with are food and for some reason paint and plaster."

"Munitions supplies code: 83-C; recruits basics supplies: 8-DE...medical supplies code: 14-P office supplies: 40-B" Gillespie said in a monotone voice.

"Whoever was on the other end didn't think to question or ask for a repeat order, it's the new civillian company running logistics they don't speak phonetics so they relay it normally so our order "Eight-Three-Charlie" becomes "8DE" in a busy office and we end up with new water bottles, nyrex and uniforms." Captain Becca said, "the wonders of privatisation." she laughed.

"Alright Bex, no time for your socialist rants now, we're going to have to make do. Wolf, What do you think?" Kovac enquired

"Surrender," Wolf replied immediately, "No seriously sir, I say we surrender." He raised his voice as the other officers shouted him down, "these aren't a horde of barely trained fanatics we're facing down these are the cream of the crop, the zealots who have served these crackpots long enough to become battle hardened and true veterans." He gestured around himself a little wildly, "what do we have? a squad of combat engineers, one squadron of wet behind the ears infantry, Gilly's auxiliary troop, and the second half of our forces are fucking weekend warriors, the strategic planetary defence reserves, other than the 88th and Gilly we can't count on two thirds of our forces. The OC is so far past it even he has realised it and I don't trust Major Picklefarts as far as I can throw her."

Kovac clicked his fingers a few times and hummed the bars to "Catfish Blues" Captain Becca gave a soulful hum.

"Woke up this mornin'," growled Dorman in his best blues singer voice, "my dog was dead; no food in my fridge y'all; ate my dog instead."

"Got idiots above me; got morons below; if it gets much colder; it'll start to snow" finished Becca.

"Feel better?" Asked Kovac.

"How can it possibly snow here? It's 35°C in the shade! We're in a god damn furnace!" Wolf drew a calming breath.

"Now that we've made Wolf feel better let's clear up a few things," first...it's Major Portbury and I don't much like her either, second the other two squadrons will hold their line until they don't not much more we can ask of them. Third, Gilly hasn't just got a troop he's got Staff Sergeant Frank King and his units could bring Muddy Waters back from the dead to slap us all for ruining blues, and he's got Griffin Battery out there and we know what those boys can do with a connonade. So it's us, it's us the 88th, 3 Squadron Combat Engineers, Fighting Fit and Fucking Ugly, the real first in last out, the infantry may hold the front line but we fucking build it." Kovac pointed a finger at his map, "everything we know says the Xhost are going to try to capture the peninsula, they do that they gain the remote base within a week and they neuter the Fortress Moon, then they have a foothold in another system and who knows how long before the Galactic Council decide to take them seriously, they'll have another million "converts" by then. So we stop them here, we hold the Isthmus, we send them back to their ships or we send them to hell."

"With glass paperweights?" Wolf asked in a scathing tone, "Kovac I love you brother but without the supplies we're going to lose."

"Want me to show you what I can do with a paperweight?" Becca said with a growl.

"That gives me an idea," said Kovac, "Wolf, Becca, who's the nastiest soldier you've got?"

"Barbie," said Wolf.

"Knickers," said Becca.

"Dorman? What about you?"

"In a fist fight? Bickers is a nasty piece of work but for one of your ideas? Well Bickers again but you'll have to let him know just how nasty you want him to get."

"Alright have those three, Buckets, Footsteps and Corporal Chloe meet me in my office, Wolf you can join us too, just keep your eyes off the Panther's arse, Becca go see what you think of Portbury. Dorman go with Gilly and see what you would do to our defences if you had a wish list."

The meeting in the Major's office went on late into the night, unusually for human military Major Kovac was not just respected by his soldiers he was well liked. In the early hours of the morning as the soldiers left the office Kovac "high-fived" Knickers as the two achieved success in their experiments.

The following morning Kovac was found striding across the top of the fortifications gesticulating enthusiastically. "Here, and down there, it'll provide good cover for your men," he explained to the dazed looking infantry officer.

Around him infantry soldiers were carefully ripping paper from notepads and sliding them into each pocket in the nyrex they held.

"You see," Gillespie was explaining enthusiastically, "we use the left over plaster and water, and soak the new uniforms in them to create a sort of plaster cast...glacis, something to absorb damage and line the enemy up to expose them to your attacks, then we fortify it with these nyrex, filled with paper they have pretty impressive stopping power and the whole thing is made of leftovers and things wrongly delivered instead of medicine and other useful supplies. It's genius really." Major Portbury looked unimpressed but that didn't stop Gillespie, "Griffin Battery have taken the paint pots that was clever too, I think Footsteps deserves a raise Kovac ha ha, then Kovac has come up with some really nasty tricks with the water bottles and paperweights."

"Unfortunately we're out of fuel," cut in Kovac, so we'll be walking a lot," in his head he played back Becca's statement from earlier this morning, 'she resents being promoted to Major late and resents having to join a new regiment of raw recruits to do it, she resents the idea that she can't cut it and resents her men, also the girl can drink but... she may be a good officer one day, if she can ditch the chip on her shoulder.'

"Major I think it's probably best if you and your men hold the centre, we need infantry not engineers playing at infantry in our middle to steady our line, we'll put the SPDR on the far right flank where the attack should be weakest, my 88th will take the left flank, they'll hit that flank harder as they're coming from the South. Better us than the militia, sorry the SPDR, but with you a rock on one side and the water on the other we should be ok."

Portbury appeared to consider this and then nodded, without the Lietenant-Colonel there Kovac had seniority anyway.

"OK then, I'm going to send my engineers out to rig up some welcome wagons for the Xhost when they arrive" Kovac gave the Major a nod and walked away.

Kovac kept his men busy that day, he pushed them to work hard and they responded, the Major himself was tireless, he moved up and down the line talking with the men of the reserves on the right flank and then spending time with the infantrymen always talking positively about the situation, at midday he organised a competition, platoon against platoon and as the men ran up and down their line, stopping and firing at specific targets they realised how the improvised glacis exposed those before it to fire from a range of fields. Their confidence grew.

Late evening saw the first lines of Xhost troops pull into view, they had started to set up camp when Griffin Battery, buried further back behind enemy lines opened fire, explosions on their base caused chaos and when the dust had settled through omni-goggles Kovac could see the smoking ruins of three air support ships, the surprise of Griffin Battery had been lost but there was no air support for the Xhost tomorrow.

When the Xhost advanced in the pre-dawn gloom they did so in near silence, Griffin Battery stayed silent, they crept forward until the silent guns filled them with confidence and the advance sped up, they crept closer until in the middle of their lines explosions tore through the ranks.

Crouched and looking through the omni-goggles, Captain Becca called out ranges as more detonations shredded the advance. The Xhost fell back.

"Improvised nailbombs, water bottles with fuel and gunpowder salvaged from rifle rounds, strapped to two glass paperweights each." Kovac nodded to Becca, "That knickers is a nasty piece of work."

"They're advancing!" Yelled Becca from her vantage point, "two divisions on the left flank, one division in the centre, half a division moving to the right."

Again the Xhost advanced cautiously, and again the guns of Griffin Battery stayed silent, the few remaining paperweight bombs detonated but this time the Xhost were ready for them, and did not recoil in shock.

The advancing army looked vast in comparison to the thin like of troops dug in to oppose them, they drew nearer still nearly in rifle range when the guns of Griffin Battery sounded, amongst the shells shattering the Xhost lines were improvised shells which erupted on impact and appeared to contain liquid fire, Lance Corporal Bickers knowing that fuel and polystyrene - a packing product for the "useless" paperweights - could combine to create a highly flammable viscous liquid was the sort of information that earned him considerable "side eye" most of the time, but on occasion proved extremely useful. The fact he had known at least four other methods to make "napalm" was considered concerning.

The advance lines caught in the firestorm disappeared into the flames, the rest of the Xhost retreated.

"They're done for the day," said Kovac harshly, he looked out at the killing zone as if forcing himself to watch what he had done.

Kovac was correct in his assessment night fell and the Xhost made no movements to advance, the human forces bedded down and the sentries fought heavy lids as they watched the enemy lines.

Morning broke with a stiff breeze sweeping in from the northern shore bringing moisture and freshness to the air. The Xhost drew up and then stood watching the human defences, they stood and sang their hymns, Major Kovac ordered his men stood down but the infantry and SPDR stayed in their positions on guard while the engineers slept. The Xhost stood and sang all day, and late into the night and while Major Kovac had his men keep sentry and the others slept the less experienced troops stayed in position.

It appeared as though the Xhost might try to sing their way to victory, depriving the troops of the Galactic Council Defence Force of sleep until they were defeated but Kovac appeared to have a plan, as dawn broke the second day on the singing Xhost, the wind tugging at the ceremonial robes if their battle clerics rifle fire sounded and commanders of the Xhost began to fall, over a dozen shots sounded before the shocked Xhost rushed forwards. Half way between the two armies Hemmings and Richards the two finest shots in the engineers ranks broke cover and sprinted for the safety of their own lines.

While the two humans had a significant lead they were stiff and cold and amongst the massed ranks of the Xhost were species significantly faster than humans. As the massed ranks of the Xhost surged forward some shapes raced ahead, fastest of all were the unmistakable forms of Rhul converts, surging across the ground in their four legged posture.

Griffin Battery opened fire and still the two snipers ran with the Rhul closing the gap every stride. Hemmings was 30 yards ahead of his fellow sniper when he stopped, turned and fired three shots, the two Rhul yards from Richards dropped and Hemmings turned and sprinted for home.

The Xhost kept coming and for the first time reached rifle range, the Xhost drove on over their falling comrades as the defensive lines cracked with rifle fire. Flashes of colour appeared in the Xhost lines as Kovac's next trick was revealed. Artillery shells, robbed of half their munitions weight attached to left over paint tins rained down on the Xhost causing damage and spreading paint across vast swathes of Xhost numbers, coating rifle sights and eye stalks in blinding paint.

Still the Xhost pushed forwards until they were close enough that the faces of the myriad species of the Xhost converts could be seen. Kovac's last trick was played, empty paint tins and empty food tins, packed with the wrongly delivered pens and pencils and the munitions taken from the paint-shells were fired from the infantry's portable howitzers.

As the thin metal reached muzzle velocity of 180m/s it shredded spraying thin slivers of metal and wood out into the Xhost lines.

A shudder went through the fanatic troops as their advance slowed and they paused, no shot fired in return and over 3/4 of their own number laying in carnage.

Kovac stood up and walked to the lip of the human defences, "now, bullet bomb, bayonets!" He bellowed and the left flank suddenly hailed grenades followed by a volley of bullets and then the 88th 3 Squadron Combat Engineers launched forward in their own advance.

By days end the Xhost were defeated and driven from the planet.

I have multiple examples of humans turning errors into victories, vulcanised rubber, antibiotics and even the low resistance substance they coat their ships in but these are often seen as unique events, they aren't. Human achievements all across history have been accompanied by two phrases. "I have an idea" and "What if?"

I'm assured "hold my beer" is a crucial part of their success too.

#humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #earth is a deathworld #earth is weird #earth is awesome #space orcs #space australia #space faerie #this is why i call kovac daddy