Heavy Metal Thunder Page 34

  You grab her arms suddenly and she lets out a hot, sexy squeak. Her breasts shake for a moment, then the momentum dies around her nipples, pressed up against her dress.

  If your Charisma is 5 or more, turn to section 127.

  If your Charisma is not so high, but your Will is 4 or more, and you want to use it, turn to section 460.

  Otherwise, turn to section 16.

  467

  More tentacles writhe up from below and lick your boots and knees before they wrap around like steel manacles. The mouth opens wide before you, ready to clamp down on your neck. You prime your jetpack and get ready for the ride of your life, fully aware that it may be a short ride.

  You must now compute a number that will determine the outcome of your maneuver. This number is your Dexterity stat plus your Will stat. If you have the Jetpack Skill, add 4 to this number.

  If your number is 8 or less, turn to section 448.

  If your number is 9 or more, turn to section 26.

  468

  You slam your weapon onto one of the drills. It knocks your hand away, jolting it and numbing your shoulder. Cursing, you raise yourself before the drills can grind you up. Then you brace yourself again - and bash one of the drills over and over again, screaming a battlecry. To your satisfaction, the drill bit keels over, spinning and shrieking, and tears another drill from its base. The two fall into the beast’s mouth. You lower yourself quickly, grasping onto the exposed rim, and knock the drills off and into the gaping mouth. With the last drill you go hog-wild, knocking it over the side and into the vacuum, but your weapon also falls to pieces - be sure to erase it from your inventory.

  The deconstructor stops, realizing it is damaged and needs repair. You turn to the other and see the guard’s gun fall into its drills. You glance up to the guard; gritting his teeth, he yanks the belt of grenades from his chest and drops the whole thing into the other deconstructor. You brace yourself as its innards are rocked by a series of explosions. It falls sideways, crashing into your deconstructor. You yank wildly on the grappling harness and it pulls you away as the two machines slide back toward the vacuum, shrieking as their metal sides bend and crush into one another, then nearly seal up the breached hallway. You and the guard fall to the floor, newly reoriented. Exhausted, you both crawl into another hallway.

  You lose 2 Blood in the battle. You gain 3 XP for successfully destroying the deconstructors. Be sure to erase the weapon that you lost.

  Turn to section 126.

  469

  You drink only thin trickles of water. You move as little as possible, for your oxygen supply disappears at an alarming rate. Your fuel dwindles down to what you have only in your jetpack.

  But the void: That is unending. Plenty of space there for a corpse to lie forever.

  If you are skilled in Navigation, turn to section 478.

  If you do not have this skill, turn to section 439.

  470

  Someone approaches and you spring to alertness. You see Zelda before you, her dress ruffled, her hair slightly unkempt, but no less beautiful than ever. “What are you up to?” she says.

  “Meditating,” you say.

  “You want to sit with me a while? Alone, just us?” She smiles, and her red lips quiver lightly against her pale skin.

  If you agree to, turn to section 280.

  If you refuse, turn to section 536.

  471

  “Marcus!” you shout. “Little help over here!”

  Marcus nails two more alien fighters who fall on a pile of the dead. Three come to fill their place and Marcus empties the rest of his clip as they pull back for cover. As he reloads with superhuman speed, he shouts, “What is it?!”

  “Out of ammunition!”

  Without pause he says, “Here you go, dipshit,” and tosses you a tiny Lady’s Derringer (Handgun, bulk 2) that has 4 Handgun bullets in its clip.

  You force your finger into the tiny guard around the trigger and prepare to shoot the second guard.

  You must now compute a number that will determine the accuracy of your second shot. This number is your Dexterity. If you are trained in Weapon Proficiency: Handgun, add 3 to this number. For every 3 Handgun bullets you fire, add 1. If you have Sixth Sense, add 1 to this number.

  If the number is 7 or less, turn to section 488.

  If the number is between 8 and 13, turn to section 111.

  If the number is 14 or more, turn to section 422.

  472

  “Hey sugar,” you say as nice as you can. “You okay? You don’t need to be scared, okay?”

  “Scared? Scared?!” she yells, glaring at you as she struggles against the laborer.

  “I need you to stay calm while I work this situation out, okay sugar dumplin’?”

  “Who the fuck are you talking to like that?” she screams. “I’m not some fucking kid!”

  “Now see, that whole panicky thing you’re doing, it’s very cute, but sweetie, I need you to be calm right now...”

  “You can’t talk to her like that!” shouts the laborer. “This is my wife, I’ll kill you if you don’t respect her! And then I’ll kill her! And then I’ll kill myself!”

  “Nobody has to die...” mutters the priest, stalking about as he licks his blade up and down. “Nobody has to die...”

  (Note that you don’t necessarily need any bullets if you just want to draw your gun as a bluff.)

  If you wish to charge the laborer and tackle him, turn to section 419.

  If you have a gun, you can draw it on the laborer by turning to section 308.

  If you have a gun, you can draw it on the priest by turning to section 149.

  If you want to try to convince the laborer to let the girl go, turn to section 447.

  If you want to talk to the priest, turn to section 281.

  473

  Against the doctor’s protests, you leave to examine the ship. The halls are cold, steel-grey and dimly lit. War and pro-human propaganda is tacked on the walls.

  You have been left with your Legion blacks and sweater. You know that your equipment has been stowed in the supply room, where they are fixing your jetpack and space suit. You can also get more gear there, but for now you decide it would be a good idea to walk around. Perhaps looking at the ship will jog your memory.

  If you want to go to the engine room, turn to section 272.

  If you want to go to the lounge, turn to section 545.

  If you want to go to the deck, turn to section 219.

  If you want to forget all that and go straight to the supply room and make sure no one steals your precious gear, turn to section 410.

  474

  You fire and the laborer’s head whips back. The girl screams, then tears herself away from him as he crumbles into a heap on the floor, body twitching, blood pouring freely from his mouth and the back of his ruined head.

  “Smooth operator,” you mutter under your breath: Gain 1 XP. But the girl glares at you, her face contorted by several emotions at once while she’s glad she is now safe, she’s extremely pissed that you fired a gun so near her head.

  She’ll get over it, you think. Cause she knows I’ll shoot her if she doesn’t.

  Be sure to erase one bullet from your inventory, then turn to section 450.

  475

  On your way to the dock command station, you pass by the main computer station where you originally watched the video feeds of the Invader ship fighting your own. You glance inside. You see empty food wrappers that weren’t there before, probably left by the manager. You wonder if he will come back, and even consider waiting for him so you can beat the crap out of him. But you don’t have time to wait the deconstructors could destroy the backup generator at any moment, ruining any chance of getting fuel from the lines. However...

  If you have a Motion-Sensitive Bomb, you could set it and leave it for the manager in case he comes back by turning to section 304.

  If you do not have such an item, continue on to the dock command station by turning
to section 32.

  476

  Legs fully bound by the tentacles, you whack and jab at the monster’s steel-hard head. Annoyed, it cranes sideways - then lurches forward and clamps its jaw down on your off-hand. You scream in terror, in agony. Your entire arm goes numb.

  You lose 3 Blood. If you survive, then by some stroke of luck your arm has lodged in between several teeth and is pinned against them rather than ground up among them. You jam your weapon into the monster’s mouth, then force it down like a lever. The mouth opens just wide enough for you to free your hand. You blast your jets and slam your weapon among teeth and tongue such that the monster jerks its head back in pain. Though your weapon flies free from your hand and disappears down the monster’s gullet, the tentacles relax for a moment and you rocket away.

  You gain 1 XP for surviving. Be sure to erase your hand-to-hand weapon from your inventory. Regeneration: If you die, you may return to section 179 to try again.

  As you fly away from the head, you see scattered around the bulk of the massive beast even more heads, more seas of tentacles. They are alarmed at your fight against their brother, but cannot reach you. You laugh wickedly, hungry to hurt this pet of the Invader. Wise to the monster’s tricks, you look for weak points that you can investigate.

  If you want to look at the hole you see in the distance, turn to section 384.

  If you want to follow one of the blue channels that runs throughout the beast’s skin, turn to section 373.

  477

  Red blood-light churns on and off slowly in the darkened chamber. The chamber is huge, with heavy steel shelves and boxes cast all around. Large chains and hooks and cranes hang from the dark rafters, shaking slightly from the vibration of distant machines. A closed door waits at the far end of the chamber; deep in your guts, you know it is the entrance to the shield generator. Far to your right, a narrow doorway sits at the top of a mesh-iron stairway.

  “Someone’s in here,” hisses Sybel. “Can feel it.”

  “Switch to infrared,” says Uther, shutting his visor as he throws several steel canisters. “They may or may not have the same capabilities. If they outnumber us, it’ll give us an edge.” You lower your visor as black smoke chokes the room. You had no idea your helm was capable of infrared, but without thinking your teeth click in such a way that your helm switches to infrared vision.

  “There they are!” shouts Sybel. “Take cover!”

  You roll and duck behind a large steel container just as gunfire blasts from the far side of the room, sending a spray of sparks hissing at your feet. You poke your head up and see three horned figures hunkered behind boxes similar to your own; one not far from you, with two further back.

  You glance back to Uther, who is looking back into the hallway from which you came. “HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP!” he calls out, which must be some code phrase on this team, because Sybel immediately rolls up beside him. “They’re sending an entire crew after us! Hell... a crew of crews!” He aims and fires into the hallway while Sybel unsheathes his two large handguns and fires beside him.

  “Looks like it’s up to us,” Marcus growls beside you. Just then more guards emerge from the narrow doorway at the top of the stairs. Before your mind fully registers that they are there, Marcus whirls and blasts them with his massive automatic rifle. His accuracy and speed are amazing; you see one guard stumble with a tight group of bullets in his chest just before Marcus puts an equally tight group into another guard’s nose and jaw, shattering teeth and spraying blood and mucus everywhere. Marcus is undoubtedly the marksman of the group.

  The first three guards up ahead fire at you still more, and you and Marcus hunker down. Marcus reloads as more guards crowd the stairs, which are already crowded with the dead. “Cromulus!” shouts Marcus. “I’ll keep the stairwell clear if you can hit those three dug in beside the shield door. Deal?”

  “Deal!” you say.

  You peek over the rim of the steel box. The three guards, confident of their position, fire round after round at you, thinking that they can slow you down long enough for the reinforcements to hammer you into oblivion. You will have to rise up over the edge fast enough to kill them - one at a time - so that your team can move on.

  You must now compute a number that will determine the accuracy of your first shot. This number is your Dexterity. If you are trained in Weapon Proficiency: Ranged, and it is with the weapon you are using, add 3 to this number. If you are using a Rifle, add 2. If you are using a Shotgun, add 1. For every 3 Handgun bullets you fire, add 1. For every 2 Rifle bullets you fire, add 1. For every Shotgun shell you fire, add 1. Furthermore, if you have the Sixth Sense, add 1 to this number.

  If the number is 8 or less, turn to section 332.

  If the number is between 9 and 15, turn to section 543.

  If the number is 16 or more, turn to section 33.

  If you are completely out of bullets, or you do have them but would rather save them for a possibly more dangerous situation, turn to section 344.

  478

  During your entire trip you have kept a careful eye on your course, making small adjustments that your helm computer cannot seem to help you with. This shortens your trip considerably, plus the thought that it requires helps keep you sane: You gain 1 XP for the use of your skill.

  Turn to section 124.

  479

  The priest immediately hops over the dead body and dives into the medical supplies. You glance over at the blood-spattered girl, who is shaking in a corner of the room, then you inspect the gear you can take with you.

  (2) First Aid Kits (Each Kit has 3 bulk, each kit heals 3 Blood.)

  Clopadropin (bulk 1) (Each dose of this prescription painkiller heals 1 Blood when taken. There is enough for 2 doses.)

  Flexadrone (bulk 1) (Whenever you temporarily lose Strength points due to injury, this drug will heal 1 Strength point. There is enough for 1 dose.)

  Slippery D’s Hip Urban Snacks (Food, bulk 1) (The bag has a picture of a man who looks very cool and in control, and an equally cool-looking young lady hangs on his arm. Their posture implies that they will soon perform the reproductive act with one another and, if you buy and eat their snack, they may let you watch.)

  While you adjust your gear, you look over at the priest. He is tying off his arm and is filling a syringe with an amazing assortment of drugs. He winks at you.

  You gain 3 XP for surviving this ridiculous, dangerous situation.

  “Well,” you say, finishing up, “looks like it’s time for me to hop on a space ship and get the hell out of here.”

  “Yeah,” says the priest. “Same here!” With that, he plunges the needle into his arm. Within moments his eyes roll into the back of his head. If you want, you may take the priest’s Bowie Knife (Blade, bulk 1), since he won’t need it where he’s going.

  As you turn to leave the room, you regard the girl. She is looking back at you, her grey eyes cold and hard.

  If you want to invite her to come with you (since, by your own personal law, her life now belongs to you), turn to section 105.

  If you just want to leave before she pulls some kind of emotional trick like she did to that laborer (bless his heart), turn to section 254.

  480

  For several days you pore over the pages, drawing in the distracting delights. The pages freeze hard in the cold of space as you memorize every line of text and illustration. Then, in a fit of disgust, you toss the stuff into the dark of space. Your eyes were not made for reading - they were made to stand witness to acts of mayhem and destruction in the name of justice!

  Erase every book and magazine from your inventory.

  The days come and go, but the boredom remains, unrelenting.

  If you have a Locket and Holophoto, turn to section 142.

  If you do not have such a trifling item, turn to section 36.

  481

  Pain shoots through your body and you hear something like the howl of a demon in your mind. You grip the sides of your head; it feels as
if you are going to crush your own skull like a melon in a steel vice. You fall to the ground, kicking uncontrollably. The beast inside is unimaginably powerful. You are able to force it back into its lair, but only at the cost of losing 3 Blood. However, you may subtract your Will score from this amount.

  Finally, your muscles relax. You lie exhausted. You hear the men talking over you and realize that they have been talking for a long time; you can only just now make out their words.

  “Black Lance Legion, is it?” says the manager. “I think they must have turned this young man into a monster.”

  “I wonder, that a harmless old man was able to set him off so,” says the doctor.

  “Well, he’s chilled out now,” says the guard. “Could probably use a stiff drink. I knows I could.”

  You rise painfully and glare at the old laborer. You will him to keep his vile mouth shut with your stare.

  Turn to section 19.

  482

  The guard seems to fly down the hall faster than you can aim. You shoot, but miss. The guard is upon you, swinging his thick pipe before you can get off another shot. You must kill him the old-fashioned way if you want to survive.

  If you use a...

  Mace - section 498, Spear - section 160, Blade - section 252.

  Otherwise, you must fight him with your bare hands by turning to section 23.