Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel by Kenn Miller

gook morale. J. D. should never have let the bikes get past without a positive ID or two, Mopar thought with growing irritation. The least they could do is guess.
    Mopar made a situation report without asking the relay team about J. D., even though the temptation to do so was hard to resist and the punishment would be no more than an asschewing from Pappy Stagg after the mission. It just wasn’t a professional thing to do, wasting air time when another team had movement.
    He took out a canteen, unwrapped a cornflake bar, and relaxed as he waited for the relay team to pass his sit-rep and J. D.’s on to Pappy Stagg in the rear. He didn’t know how Marvel’s watch had gone, but it couldn’t have crept by like this. Marvel at least had had the chance to listen to some of J. D.’s better situation reports. But all Mopar was getting was squelch breaks, and he could hear only the relay’s half of those. Life might be a butt-puckering, pulse-thundering thrill in J. D.’s Recon Zone, but here among the brambles on a totally cold ridge in a very dead RZ, Mopar was losing his patience and dying to know what the motorcycles had been hauling.
    There had been nothing said during his watch so far—no questions about specifics relayed from the rear, no updates from J. D. himself, and Mopar wondered how much had been covered in previous traffic but wasn’t exciting enough for Marvel to pass on to him.
    He bent down and shook Marvel awake. “Listen,” he whispered, “I’ve been monitoring the radio all this time without any idea what’s on those bikes. What did J. D. say during your watch?”
    Marvel rubbed his eyes and sat up slowly. He looked around at the darkness and the scattered phosphorescence and the other men sleeping half in shadow and half in dappled moonlight. He yawned. He’d been dreaming about finding a large yellow balloon drifting down a slow jungle river beneath an arch of overhanging branches, and he wondered if he could pick up where he’d left off if he went to sleep without answering Mopar’s stupid question. It had been an oddly pleasant dream, and Marvel was certain that it meant something.
    “Come on, you silly gook—what did J. D. report during your watch? I want it all, in detail.”
    Marvel stretched and yawned again. He took his time answering. J. D. hadn’t been able to see much, he explained, and all he’d said about the cargo of the motorcycles was that it seemed to be made up mostly of rectangular crates of some kind, and long cylindrical objects—rockets or bangalore torpedoes.
    “Where do you think they’re going? Culculine?” Mopar asked.
    Marvel shrugged and doused some bug juice on a leech that had just fastened to his cheek. He brushed the dying leech off his face and shivered with disgust.
    “Fucking leeches—they aren’t even part of the food chain. What do they live on when the Lurps are back in the rear? I don’t even think they exist until we come along, and then they just sort of generate out of all the rot and decay on the ground and come feeling for our heat. I hate the fuckers, I really do.”
    Mopar frowned impatiently. He hated leeches as much as the next man, but he hadn’t shaken Marvel awake to discuss them.
    “Come on, you dork! What do you think they’re up to?”
    “Who? J. D.? He’ll probably get his ass in a sling opening fire on somebody, and they’ll have to give him his gunships. He’ll kill about a million zips, give Pappy Stagg a few more gray hairs, then bring his team out alive and well in the morning and get himself a medal and an asschewing. J. D.’s too flashy, and that’s his bad luck.”
    “You know I wasn’t asking about J. D., damnit Marvel, you dipshit!” Any louder and Mopar wouldn’t have been whispering anymore. Gonzales rolled over in his sleep, and Wolverine’s breath caught for a second in a half snore, then evened out as slow and regular as before.
    “What about the gooks? What do they have in mind?”
    The combination