Frost Moon

Frost Moon Part 2

Acolyte Tunang wasn't happy. Icy wind ruffled his parka as he sloshed through themud towards the old hangar housing their HQ. The hunting trip he'dbeen looking forward to had lost most of its glamour. First, SergeantHerlovsen had refused them permission to bring along their slavegirls, and now he'd just found out that they weren't going to beissued any Battle Boosters either, on account of this being a'low-threat'-mission. Fuck that, where was the fun in blowingshit up if you didn't have drugs and babes?

His foul mood wasn'timproved by the ripe stench coming from the unclean slaves stacking metal crates just inside the hangar door. His firm grip on Lotte helped him calm down. Lotte was a fully automatic grenade launcher; the newest model from Kongsberg, accurate at ranges up to 2 km –not that accuracy really mattered with Tunang's preferred ammo. He paused, stroking her solid metal stock for a moment – and listened to it make a satisfying crunch as he used it to smash in the knee of the closest slave. The elderly male collapsed with a shriek. The heavy crate he'd been trying to push into place balanced precariously – the seconds stretching into an eternity – before falling down on top of the poor wretch. His outstretched arms broke like matchsticks, and the reverberating clang of metal agains tconcrete mixed with the delicate sound of splintering wood. Tunang grinned, picturing the other unclean idiots having to clean up that mess, but tried to compose himself before entering the enclosed area they used for briefings. It wouldn't do if the brothers caught on to his not completely pious thoughts.

His attempts at composing himself were shattered by the large shape of Brother Bjerke approaching from the direction of the vehicle bay. Most of the Chosen were somewhat on the chubby side, but Bjerke was grossly fat. In his bright green, spotlessly clean mechanics uniform he looked like a large and ugly toad. It was never a good thing when Bjerke was happy. And right now he was grinning from ear to ear.

'Greetings Tunang,I hope you remembered to put on your thermal underwear,' the toad chirped. Tunang didn't follow.

Bjerke smirked smugly. 'Remember that slave you threw into the acid bath last week, because he smelled? Guess what – he was the only one who knew how the navigation systems worked. Which means that until we get a replacement specialist, the war-rig isn't going anywhere. So you're going out on the snowmobiles! With you on point. Since it's your fault.'

Tunang was fuming,but held his tongue. He knew that Bjerke was trying to provoke him into doing something stupid. Bjerke hated upstarts like him, who had clawed their way up from the orphanages. And while Bjerke couldn't dispute the purity of Tunang's Voice, he could do his best to make his life miserable. And what was the big deal anyway? It was just a slave. It was just like when he'd tossed his girlfriend's dog into the oven, when it didn't quit its damn yapping and his girlfriend went totally mental on him and he had to get physical.'Note to self', he thought; 'remember to send her flowers and a new puppy – she ought to wake up from the coma soon.' You had to have standards, and if something wasn't up to standard, it had to be dealt with.

Snowmobiles? This was getting worse and worse. According to the weather forecast, a bad storm was coming up, and as trailblazer he'd have get off and on the damned machine the whole time. The problem was those new damned Italian combat armors they had been issued with. Strong enough to withstand 10mm shells and with a power field supposedly capable of stopping most energy weapons. The problem was that Italians knew nothing about how to make stuff work in sub-zero temperatures. The internal thermostat went haywire below zero and burned out the batteries in less than 5 minutes. Not really a problem as long ashe'd be sitting plugged in to his snowmobile's power plant. Slightly more awkward when he'd be working unplugged, due to having to jump on and off the damned snowmobile all of the damned time. This was going to be a long and cold hunt. Pure joy, wading around in 20-30 kilos of Kevlar and useless electronics...