CHAPTER 32


   Their numbers always counted for a lot and, unfortunately, the Orc always had the numbers. Hoop was never really sure how they managed to have an almost endless supply of cannon fodder but, at least it was just cannon fodder. He never found them particularly bright when it came things like tactics. Sure, they were brave as hell but, there was also another term for that. It was called being stupid. Orc tactics never seemed to go beyond the idea that they wanted to go to a certain place and the shortest route was a straight line. That was why this situation was a little more than unexpected. There was no real way to describe it and all that Hoop could come up with was, “Un-Orc like.” The bastards had actually planned an ambush.
The Orcs had not done a very good job of setting their trap but, that was not really the disturbing part. It was the kind of thing that they should have never thought of in the first place and for a host of reasons. There was a Blackhawk helicopter that was sitting pretty in the middle of a field. It was not just any field either. This one was a designated landing zone just north of RAF Merlin. It was obvious to the commando's that the chopper had not been caught on the ground here. The Orcs had used some of their beasts of burden to pull it to the site. They had done very little to cover their tracks and left a trail that someone in grade school could follow. It was so bad that John smelled a trap in a trap but, this did not prove to be the case either.
What really had the entire group on edge was, why the Orcs felt a need to set a trap in the first place. If they wanted to just inflict casualties, there were a lot of easier ways to do it. This seemed like a complete waste of resources but, as Jamie noted, it was their waste and why look a gift horse in the mouth? They left Patty in a spot where she could keep an eye on the chopper while the rest of the group broke off into two man teams and began quietly sweeping the enemy perimeter. Within a half hour the little war party had been dispatched with very little sound. After taking out the last Orc outpost, Hoop took a moment to examine the enemy.
After carefully rolling one of the dead creatures over, which was no small task given it's size an weight, Hoop carefully examined it's head. He had noticed, right from the start, that they were all wearing those funny, 'double barreled' sling shots, like they were goggles. When Hoop pointed it out to Jamie, the Canadian had another name he had given these things, “you mean the snot bra's?”
“It'd take a fucking Canadian to come up with a perverted name like that,” Hoop replied as he yanked the thing off the Orc's head. This particular item was covered in gore since, Hoop had shot this Orc in the eyeball with a twenty-two pistol. The only significant thing that Hoop could note was that not all of the gore was from the Orc. A lot of it was the 'snot ball' held in the sling shot part of the headband. Hoop almost screamed when the second ball of snot came crawling out of it's holder. He turned it into soup with his boot heal and then huffed out, “that damn thing was alive.”
Jamie kept looking at the direction of travel and the spot where Hoop had squished it. It was headed for the undamaged eye of the dead Orc. He thought about the head band, where they had found it and, finally, about what this Orc was doing out here. Then he quietly said, “night vision.”
“What?” Hoop said with a disgusted snarl on his face as he wiped his boot on the back of the dead Orc. “This thing has got an eye sucking pet and you...”
“Why else would they wear it like that?” Jamie pointed to the other Orcs they had killed. “We already know they can't see good in this light. Those things must help.” When they joined back up with the rest of the team, at the helicopter, Jamie related what he saw and added, “the only thing I can't figure is, if it's true, it  didn't help. They still didn't see us coming.”
Mike Green was looking over the chopper even if he knew he did not have any experience with it. He figured he was smart enough to recognize damage if he saw it and did not entirely trust Hoop, who was trying to pre-flight the bird. Mike had an answer for Jamie, “they didn't see us cause they were watching something else.” This bit of news caused concern with everyone except John. Mike shot him a  disturbed and almost angry look when he asked the guy directly, “how did you know?”
John had checked out as much of the chopper as he could when he finally replied, “I didn't. We just got lucky.” It was an answer that John was not sure Green believed but, he also did not care. Instead he asked Hoop, “are we good?”
Hoop was sitting in the pilots seat and after checking to see if some of the instruments would light up, he nodded to John and said, “yeah we're good. We even got enough to fuel to go north but, it's going to be a one way trip.”
Patty had noticed the looks that Mike and John were exchanging and was a little concerned that some of the glances came her way. She was not ready to drop the issue, “what are you talking about Mike? What did you two see?”
Jamie was still on the helicopter subject when he asked, “wait a minute. We probably won't be able to get a pick up if we need it now. If we go then... that's it.”
John answered with, “everything we need is up there.”
Patty protested, “would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Mike was still looking at John when he told Patty, “the Orcs saw you. For some reason they were really interested too.”
John began to stow his gear as he said, “we don't know that for sure.”
Mike ignored the rebuttal and added, “they had nets.”
Jamie's eye brow tweaked as he heard that. He became seriously concerned, “nets? What would they need nets for?”
Mike continued by almost accusing John, “you set her out as a diversion.”
John just shrugged it off, “we needed one and she wanted to be useful.”
“You could have told her that,” Mike replied in an almost hostile tone.
Patty felt the growing tension and stepped between the two guys as she told them, “guys, get a grip here, we have other problems to worry about.”  She looked to Mike, “it's ok, he's right.”
John remained easy enough as he slid in the co-pilots seat and nodded for everyone to mount up, “we're going to have to get out of here fast when Hoop starts these engines. I suggest you all get aboard.” As a consolation he told Mike, “she was never in any real danger.”
All Mike had to say on the matter was, “like you said, you didn't know.”
There wasn't much of a conversation after that and Patty was thankful. The lack of talking had less to do with an end to the hostility and more due to the fact that there were no working headsets in the chopper. Patty also found her seat and harness full of bloodstains and this distracted her from thinking about anything else. She was glad when they landed and felt like looking for the first shower she could find. Then she saw the trucks they had landed next to. They were in bad shape but, their former occupants were even worse. Gnomes had heads that were way too large for their bodies, at least by human standards. They were hard to look at but, as Patty found, it was even worse when you saw one without the body attached.
As what seemed to be his way, Mike Green looked over the three shot up vehicles and ignored the biological mayhem. He noted the antiquated looking weapons that had been mounted in the flatbeds. They were mortars of the muzzle loading variety and had all of the tools that went with them. That told Mike they were not antiques for display. He tossed a broken pole aside, after a quick examination, and then noted, “what the hell did they think they were going to do with these things?”
Jamie was busy looking around the surrounding terrain, “it's the only artillery they have.”
Hoop was almost angry, “and if they parked them here, there ain't no mystery as to why.”
Patty had seen plenty of war but, this was something else entirely. She could not even imagine some screwed up modern art looking so grotesque. That was why she kept her distance as she asked, “why were they here?”
John was a bit disgusted as he answered, “they were waiting for help that was never going to show up.”
Jamie could see that did not quite explain it so he added, “there's an elf reaction force. It's a part of the deal the gnomes made with them. If there was ever any real trouble the elves were supposed to put an infantry battalion on the ground to help out. This was probably one of the landing zones and the artillery came to cover the choppers.”
Patty thought about how strange that sounded and finally, she pinned down exactly what was wrong with this new information, “deal? What deal?”
It was Mike that answered and he sounded pretty sure of himself as he walked away from the carnage, “fairy dust.”
John almost laughed and was definitely amused by how much the college professor seemed to know. Still, John figured the guy was guessing about a lot of it. They were good guesses though. John then just admitted, “he's right.”
Patty was a little confused and even more shocked, “the Gnomes are the ones supplying the drugs that are being smuggled to Earth?”
Jamie seemed a bit humbled as he explained, “no, but they have to ship them through Gnomeland. To do that the elves needed their permission and that doesn't come free.”
Hoop snorted at the sight in disgust and added, “particularly with Gnomes. Those little bastards would sell their own children if you offered the right price.”
Jamie waived that off, “he's kidding, sort of.”
Mike put it on the table to test a theory, “it's the elves smuggling that shit to Earth.”
Patty could see it but, still, she could not understand why, “I don't get it though. They need us, a lot. Why would they risk an incident by doing something they know will cause problems for us?”
Mike had an answer and one he was so sure of he did not even give it a second thought, “money.”
Patty did not buy it, “so they're greedy? They want to get rich? Become inter dimensional drug lords? I don't....”
John did not even look at anyone when he stated, “they're not trying to get rich. Elves don't care about stuff like that, at least, not like humans or gnomes do.” When he got another confused look from Patty he explained further, “they might not be big into piling up fortunes and things but, elves need stuff just like any other creature. In this case, they needed guns, a lot of them, and fast.”
Patty remembered something that Bob had told her a while back. She remembered the rumors about gun shipments to Britain and how that had been the red flag that really led to the revelation about the Dell. This would seem to indicate that the rumors were for real and, suddenly, Patty realized something else even more disturbing. She looked over at the shot up trucks and then her jaw dropped before she said, “they knew this was coming? This attack?”
Mike nodded and said, “and they didn't have nothing to pay with so they cut a deal with Balfour. They supply the drugs, he sells it on Earth, they split the profits and the elves use it to buy what they need. They'd been stealing shit from us all along but this whole situation kind of put their panties in a twist. They didn't have time to copy our stuff, so, they had to buy up surplus on Earth but, it turned out to be too much.”
Jamie shrugged, “a little over simplified but, yeah.”
John began preparing his gear for another long walk when he clarified, “they didn't know anything for sure. They just knew something wasn't right.”
Mike was still a bit hostile when he asked, “and how do you know that? Oh, let me guess, you were the guys doing all the scouting for them.”
Hoop almost laughed, “damn straight.”
Jamie filled in, “we raided an Orc camp, above the red line, a few years ago. It was pretty clear they were staging for something big.”
Hoop then continued with, “yeah, and we blew the shit out of it but, it didn't even put a dent in their operations.”
John fixed his fanny pack and said, “the funny part was, nobody seemed to even give a shit. They were all too busy worried about other things.”
Mike grumbled, “what kind of other things?”
John did not answer but Jamie did, “we don't know. That's kind of why we went rogue. We got the feeling they wanted us all out of the way.”
Now, Hoop got angry, “got a feeling?”
Patty was still both horrified and confused, “why would they do that? It doesn't make any sense.”
“Sure it does,” Mike answered, “they got another secret they want to to keep and they thought these mother fuckers would spill the beans, even if it was just by accident.” Mike then looked John directly in the eye and said, “and that secret sure as hell ain't about no drugs. Our government has to know all about that crap, by now.”
Again, Jamie shrugged and humbly replied, “yeah, pretty much.”
Patty snarled, “our government is helping them? Mike how could you possibly know that?”
“Naw,” Mike replied, “the government ain't helping them, they just ain't stopping it. Think about it Patty. There's only one narrow little choke point to earth. You don't think they couldn't have stopped it, if they really wanted too? They ain't done it cause they want the elves to have them guns.”
Patty did the math, “that would mean our government knew about this attack, too.” As much as it disgusted Patty, she now began to understand some of what had transpired over the past few years. It made a lot more sense now or, at least, it did up to a point. Still, even if the Orc overran the entire Feyland Empire, they would still be a minimal threat to earth though. Was committing so many troops here really justified? Letting the elves collapse would be a shitty thing to do but, at the same time, propping up their regime also seemed to be an equally bad deal. On that note, Patty began to think that there was no good answer to this situation. She also had a sneaking suspicion that there was still more to it than even these revelations seemed to indicate. Unfortunately, the only thing she seemed to be able to do about all of this was follow the rabbit hole even deeper.