Heavy Metal Thunder Read online

  “NO, WAIT -” he screams before you pull your helm away from his.

  Your arm swings back for a killing stroke and his face opens horribly in sheer, mind-numbing panic. Then you swing, hard, and smash his faceplate open. Air rushes out in a mist that hides his face.

  When the mist clears, his face warps unnaturally before you, red with massive blue veins, his eyes bulging, mouth working to draw in air that no longer exists. His face turns purple, a network of bruises blossom along his neck, forehead, cheeks, his tongue swells horribly then his eyeballs explode and without pause you wipe the goo from your helm visor so that you can watch your murderer die the death of the weak.

  Amazing, you think. While your heart rages and floods you with panic, you ride the wave of nausea until it brings you to a place forbidden to all normal human beings: The feeling of a revenge sated fills you with dark satisfaction. Now the man who set me on my terrible journey is dead. Why he tried to kill me, I do not know and I may never know. But the human species has one less craven dog to worry about.

  You set your boots on the dead man’s chest, bend your knees, then kick him away as you fly back toward the battle. The corpse floats away, one more ghost damned to float forever in the vast nothingness.

  Make a note that you have killed John Christian, as this will affect the rest of your life.

  Turn to section 222.

  383

  Looking back and forth between you and the dead man, the guard smirks and says, “M-mean... no... harm!” He slaps his knee as he falls against a wall, overcome with laughter.

  You chuckle a bit yourself, then say, “Well, he attacked me first.”

  “Guess the old asshole got what he wanted, then!” says the guard.

  “How many more of you are there?”

  “They’s five of us,” he says, wiping away a tear. Glancing at the dead man again, he says, “Uh, four now, I guess. But it don’t make no difference. You, me, the others, we’re all gonna be dead pretty soon!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, them robots is all over the place, right? And all our ships are wasted, and no help comin’. Can’t say the situation looks all that good!” The man laughs again. “Anyway, the hell you come from?”

  “Don’t remember,” you say. “But is it true that you have no ships here?”

  “Hell no, not a one,” he says. “Invader made sure to hit our docks pretty hard. Nothin’ but scrap metal left.”

  “Might there be a ship in another station?”

  “S’far as I know, this little heap took about the least o’ the damage. Besides, it’s not like we got any suits or ships to go check the others out, right?”

  You eye one another for a moment. Then the man says, “Anyway, I was just about to head to a supply room. Big Boss is still in charge, I guess... he wanted me to see if we got anythin’ useful. He’s a real asshole. I might kill him, I dunno jus’ yet.”

  “Alright, psycho,” you say. “Lead the way.”

  Turn to section 392.

  384

  You cross the silent, grey landscape with gliding steps until you reach the dark hole. It looks as if something has dug the hole into the beast. You shine your helm light into the hole and see exposed pink flesh, frozen over. Thick blue veins jut out from the wound. The scanner on your helm lamp beeps with some finding: Some traces of liquid hydrogen are bubbling out of the creature’s wound and are dissipating out into the void.

  Strange, you think. That’s the same stuff our ships use for fuel.

  You decide to move your investigation to one of the blue channels.

  Turn to section 373.

  385

  The guard slams his fist into your torso, driving the air from you. You feel like either you are going to black out or your heart is going to explode. But you do not cry out.

  You must now compute a number to see if you are being beaten to death, or just close to it. Add your Ground Combat (1 G Combat) to your Strength and your Will stat. If you are trained in Weapon Proficiency: Spear, add 3 to the number.

  During your pounding you lose 9 Blood - but you can subtract the number calculated above from this amount. If your Blood has dropped to zero or less, then the guard has pounded your body into a gooey mess sloshing around inside your suit. If you have survived his onslaught, then continue on.

  After some awkward groping you manage to drag your weapon into place, holding it above your head. You had simply hoped to ward off his blows; instead, he brings his hand crashing into the weapon and yelps in pain, clutching his broken hand. You swing the weapon around and, with both hands, bash him in the face with the end of it.

  He snuffles loudly as his nose shatters and spreads like red silly-putty all around his face. You leap up as he falls backward. As he crawls about, you swing the thing like a golf club into his head; you nearly throw up, so sickening is the sound of teeth and bones crunching in his face. He slams into a wall and slides down, face pouring blood like a syrup fountain. A few good whacks finishes the job - that is, if the job is to find out exactly what this man had inside his skull.

  You gain 2 XP for killing the guard. You search his body and find the following items:

  STELLAR Hand-Held Radio (bulk 1)

  Lounge Card Key (bulk 0)

  Turn to section 565.

  386

  You bring your boot down on one of the deconstructor’s heads, then slip backwards like it was a banana peel. Even before you hit the floor, the things start beating you senseless with their steel tentacles. You cover yourself and kick out with your feet. A lucky blow smacks against the side of the one of the things. You haul yourself up, tears streaming down your eyes, and grab the thing by two of its appendages. “L-leave me alone!” you scream in terror as you swing the thing about, smashing its companion to pieces. You lift the thing above your head. Its tentacles smack you in the back of the knees; you hit the ground, but bring the deconstructor down with you. Even as the monster smashes into hundreds of pieces, a broken plate flies upward, catching you in the forehead. Your head reels and the ground rises to meet you.

  You lose 5 Blood from this terrible encounter. If your Blood has dropped to zero or below, then you have died, a disgrace to the Legion.

  If you have survived, you rise to your feet, winded and bleeding. Turn to section 298.

  387

  The two louts charge and Buford slams into you. You crash into a stack of boxes and your head slams painfully against the floor, jarring you. Immediately the two take turns kicking you in the sides and in the head, and it is all you can do to roll into a ball to minimize the horrible agony. It seems like an hour passes and you can barely draw a single nauseating breath when you hear Cletus mutter, “Hell, man... exhausted... lorda’ mercy, I need some air...”

  You must now compute a number that will determine the outcome of this fight. This number is your Strength stat added to your 1 G Combat stat. If you are skilled in Weapon Proficiency: Hand-to-Hand, and it is with the weapon you are using, add 2 to this number. If you are using a Blade, add 1 to this number. If you are using a Mace, add 2.

  During the fight you lose 14 Blood, though you may subtract the number above from this amount. You may also subtract your Defense rating, if you have any.

  If you die, then you may Regenerate by turning to section 312, or, if you want to go further back, section 179.

  Your ears ring painfully and you cannot quite make out Buford’s reply, but the two fall on each other like wild animals. In the two minutes it takes you to recover and drag yourself to your knees, you see Cletus prone and bloody beneath Buford, writhing in pain. Your vision clouds over in a red haze and you run full-tilt at Buford’s back.

  You leap and your knee crashes into the back of his fat head, smashing his face into the wall. As in a dream you see yourself rearranging the man’s face, blow by bloody blow, until something like soup pours out of his head. You turn and see Cletus crawling away in a trail of smeared blood. You limp over to him and grind yo
ur foot into his neck. While his body twitches on the ground you lean against a wall to breathe.

  Turn to section 341.

  388

  The laborers clamber up the gangplank, shoulders drooping and hair clinging to their sweaty faces. You nod to them and slap one on the shoulder as they pass. “Thanks a lot,” you say. “Good work, gentlemen.”

  One of them nods to you wearily, a sad half-smile on his face.

  Probably lived here their whole lives, you think, and now they’re leaving it behind. And the last thing they did here was the same thing they’ve been doing all the time - sweating away for someone else, just to survive, in the hope that things would get better. And these guys didn’t complain, either.

  These guys may live at the bottom of the barrel, but no human being deserves to be target practice for alien scum.

  “THIRTY SECONDS TIL OPENING,” says the voice of the intercom. You enter the Narrenschiff and seal the door behind you.

  Make a note that the Three Laborers are with you.

  Turn to section 427.

  389

  You consider the fact that maybe the Invader ship knew that your own ship was close by, and so left a sniper team to intercept you here. Perhaps there are other such teams on other asteroids. But you consider another option as well. You know that Invader culture is highly militaristic, Spartan, and heartlessly disciplined. You know from personal experience how difficult it is to spend time in space with nothing between you and the void but a few layers of padding. Perhaps these two were left out here as a sort of punishment - they may have been thieves, goldbrickers, retards, homosexuals, or any sort of life form that a draconian culture would hold in disregard.

  Perhaps they were not the elite badasses you thought they were. You gain 1 XP for using your training to make an educated guess about these soldiers.

  You slowly bend down to remove their helms. Though disfigured by the effects of the vacuum, you can still make out their features. The faces have enough human traits to disturb you, but are alien enough to disgust as well. Their faces are longer than a human’s, with long noses that end thickly. Their eyes are slitted, slightly upturned at the far ends. Bovine comes to mind. The mouths are decidedly human, save for slightly elongated eye-teeth that can only be called fangs.

  The sniper has finer features than the other; his coloration is a pale red, his hair and beard darker red. The fighter is squatter, thicker, and his skin is bluish, though it is difficult to tell if this was his original color due to the effects of the vacuum, and his hair and beard are jet black.

  The longer you look at the strange faces, the more human they look. But one thing about them makes them truly alien - both have long, curved horns that jut out from their skulls. Even their helms are designed not to fit around their heads, but rather are made in two pieces that lock together, one in front and one in back. The horns are the color of bone; they are bone, extensions of their skulls.

  You cannot make out any features on their eyes, for they have been completely ruptured by the vacuum.

  Their bodies are humanoid, though their legs seem slightly long. You rip off their boots and note that they have only two large toes tipped with thick, yellow-brown nails. Their heels seem highly arched.

  “Satyrs,” you mutter under your breath. “The demons we are fighting... are satyrs.”

  As you search their bodies, you find that the fighter wears a set of armor under his space suit. You may take his Hard Vest (Bulk 2, Defense 2) if you wish.

  (If this is the first set of armor you have found, then armor works like so: When you lose Blood, you will be told if you may subtract your Defense rating from the amount of your Blood loss. If the text makes no mention of subtracting your Defense rating from Blood loss (for instance, if you lose Blood due to starvation, or due to a blow to a part of your body not covered by armor), then, of course, you may not subtract your Defense rating from the Blood loss.)

  You pry the field-generating short sword from the fighter’s hand. The weapon hums in your hand. Field-generating weapons are the special advanced-technology weapons used by infantrymen to hack through the invisible shields of large vessels. Charged weapons are much better than inert weapons. You may take the Charged Gladius (Blade, bulk 2) if you wish.

  You may also take the Alien Sniper Rifle (bulk 3) if you wish, though it does not seem to use your own caliber of ammunition. You have the feeling that you can trade it for something else when you reach your home ship.

  A search of the sniper’s hideout reveals a stockpile of oxygen tanks, frozen food, tanks of water, a shelter much like a collapsible Wilderness Void Tent, and even some liquid hydrogen fuel. You gather the stuff up behind you, but you are determined not to make another ship-less journey. You set off in search of the ruins of the Narrenschiff, praying that she can be salvaged.

  Keep in mind that if you have any SD damage, the void bleeds you for that much Blood. If you die, then you may Regenerate by turning to section 312, or if you want to go further back, section 179.

  Turn to section 351.

  390

  You dive under the beam. You hear the slap of scores of dog feet as the animals pour into the room behind you. You pull yourself through rubble, dust, shards of glass. The dogs yip like banshees herded into a meat-grinder. You can hear them fighting at the bottlenecked entrance behind you. The hole you crawl through gets tighter, tighter, until it feels like you are in your own grave.

  If you have a Dexterity of 3 or more, turn to section 404.

  If you have a Dexterity of 2 or less, turn to section 9.

  391

  With one hand you grab his arm roughly, then place your helm against his with an ominous clink. You are almost sure that you are smiling. You cannot help it.

  “H-hey,” says John Christian, blinking rapidly. “You’re the guy with the... uh, the guy that, with the memory problem, right? Amnesia, right?”

  “That’s right,” you say, smiling maniacally.

  “H-heard about you,” he says, smiling nervously.

  “Yep. Some things, I can’t remember at all. Other things, oh-h-h, I remember them real well.”

  John Christian swallows in a dry throat, then says, “Listen man, my jetpack, it’s busted. Radio too. Can you… think you can give me a push to the ship? I’m... I’m stuck out here, man...”

  Something about the man seems incredibly sad. Pathetic. It is a wonder that this is the same man that you distinctly remember tried to kill you. You remember nothing of your childhood, not even anything about your own brother Kregus. But of all your memories, your subconscious saved that one image - the image of this man screaming psychotically as he swung a mace into your head - for you to keep with you through all your long and horrible journey.

  If you have a change of heart and want to push the man back toward the ship so that he will live, turn to section 446.

  If you want to kill the man who tried to kill you, turn to section 382.

  392

  The guard leads you deeper into the station. You come to a locked door and he punches a combination into the keypad. You enter and see shelves full of boxed goods and weapons, though it looks like others have already picked the place over. You and the guard tear open boxes and find the following things that might prove useful.

  STELLAR Guard Standard Issue Rifle (Rifle, bulk 3)

  8 Rifle Bullets (total bulk 1; see table below)

  STELLAR Officer Handgun (Handgun, bulk 2)

  15 Handgun Bullets (total bulk 1; see table below)

  (3) Tasty Rations (Food; each has a bulk of 1)

  Utility Knife (Blade, bulk 1)

  Heavy-Duty Wrench (Mace, bulk 3)

  Sticky Fix (bulk 1) (This handy life-saving item patches up damage done to space suits in an instant, even while in the vacuum, with enough for 2 uses.)

  The guard grabs up a heap of ammunition, but does not load his rifle in front of you. He slaps on a helmet too big for his head, then spins it around while making a nonsense so
und. Unfortunately none of the law enforcement armor can be fit under or over your Black Lance Legion suit.

  As you stuff ammunition into your utility belt, you note the weight of it. Even ammunition has bulk. See the table below for how much bulk ammunition takes up. Note that bulk is applicable even for 1 bullet; for example, 15 Handgun bullets would weigh 1 bulk, while 16 Handgun bullets would weigh 2 bulk. This table can also be found in the Rules Index in the back.

  BULK OF BULLETS TABLE

  Handgun bullets: 15 bullets = 1 bulk

  Rifle bullets: 10 bullets = 1 bulk

  Shotgun shells: 5 shells = 1 bulk

  You notice a locked bin in the room. You kick it soundly, but it does not open.

  If you have the Workers’ Keys, you may try to open the bin with them by turning to section 508.

  If you do not have this item, or do not want to try to open the bin, leave the supply room by turning to section 515.

  393

  The air is whipped from your lungs and is replaced by ice. You try to warm your limbs, but they go numb. Then your eyes freeze in your skull, and the image of your comrades flying away is frozen into your vision.

  Few are the dead who go happy to their graves. You, at least, die smiling, a hero who will be remembered for as long as your species survives.

  THE END.

  You may Regenerate by turning back to section 161.

  394

  You start down the long hall to the ruined docks and the dock control room, where the fuel lines are. You hear the whir and clatter of heavy machinery. You freeze in your tracks as a robot fork lift rounds a bend in front of you, then turns to face you. Its dome sensor locks on you, and several appendages click and spin menacingly around its two heavy lifting beams. It spins about on its wide treads, nearly blocking the entire hall.