Heavy Metal Thunder Page 35

  483

  “Surely you need your papers,” he says coldly. “Aren’t they a comfort to your kind?”

  “They won’t help me kill aliens,” you say. “No alien is going to stop and ask about some bureaucratic nonsense.”

  A pause, then the Commander smiles wickedly. “No amount of bureaucratic wrangling, no law or series of laws, can prove that you are human. What you will earn today, no amount of money can buy. Come with us, if you think you’ve got what it takes.”

  “SIR!” you shout. “YES SIR!”

  Turn to section 58.

  484

  You pull yourself over the steel box. Death hisses in your ears. Then the horned monster peers over the edge, gun extended. As you pull the trigger, you see the flash of his own gun. Just as your bullet slams into his mouthpiece, shattering teeth and tongue and blowing out the back of his head in a spray that paints the far wall, your own gun jerks in your hand. The front end falls off the hand grip, and you realize in horror that both your bullets must have been millimeters from one another in the air. Had you held the gun a little differently, you would have been shot in the face.

  Be sure to erase the gun from your inventory, as well as the amount of ammunition that you used.

  Turn to section 520.

  485

  One, two, three whacks from the wrench breaks the lock. You find the following items in the locker.

  Clopadropin (bulk 1) (This prescription painkiller heals 1 Blood when taken. There is enough for 2 doses.)

  Worker’s Coveralls (bulk 3)

  “Mike, Leon, Don, Ralph: Getting In Touch With Your Personality Type and Your Mutant Spirit Animal” (bulk 2) (This book promises to help the reader gain a personality if he or she does not already have one.)

  Wakem Pills (bulk 1) (This guarana-derivative is common among laborers. When wounded, you may use this item to restore 1 Blood. There is enough for 1 dose.)

  “Guide to STELLAR CORP Infotech” (bulk 2) (This manual contains information about the computer systems used by the Stellar mining corporation.)

  Your body cries out for oxygen.

  If you have a Dexterity score of 2 or more, turn to section 86.

  If not, turn to section 64.

  486

  You must now compute a number that determines the result of your fire. If you are skilled in Weapon Proficiency: Ranged, and it is with the gun you are using, add 3. Add 1 for every 2 Rifle bullets or every 4 Handgun bullets you fire. Add your Dexterity.

  If the number is 6 or more, turn to section 182.

  If the number is 5 or less, turn to section 482.

  487

  You are able to find a status log of all the stations and the ships they have in port. As for the stations, their status is either black, which means that they are completely without power, or they have a jumble of flashing red-flag systems alerts: Massive hull breaches, oxygen leaking out of control, water conduits emptied out. More alerts pop up all the time as the deconstructors continue their work.

  You check the logs for the ships and your heart sinks, for there are no ships listed as functional. Every last ship has been destroyed. Even this station lists its ship bay as nonexistent, a ruin. Furthermore, none of the long-range communication arrays have been left standing. Things look grim.

  Then you notice a recorded visual log. Your pulse races as you realize you can now see the event that led to your abandonment here on the ghost station.

  You gain 1 XP for the successful use of your skill. Turn to section 152.

  488

  You swing out over the side. Smoke rolls about in front of you, casting deep shadows throughout the hellish red chamber. Two horned heads rise into view. You fire at one, who jerks and slides along the ground, dead, but the other gets off a shot before you can move. Your helm is blasted sideways and pain rings throughout your skull as you crash into the ground. As you reach up to adjust your helm you feel a great dent that presses against your battered head. You struggle to rise once more, though your vision shakes sickeningly.

  You lose 7 Blood, though you may subtract your Will stat from this amount. Be sure to erase the amount of ammunition that you used.

  If you die, then it turns out there are two large dents in your helm - one where the bullet went in, and another where it came out again. No amount of Will can overcome that. You may Regenerate by turning back to section 161.

  If you survive, then you hear the last guard blast away at your cover as you crawl back onto your knees. You glance over at Marcus. A pile of alien dead are scattered about the narrow doorway, the stairwell, and beneath the stairs themselves. The walls run thick with blood as Marcus reloads once more. Behind you, you see Commander Uther throw the last of his alien guns away. Sybel hands him one of his handguns and a clip of ammunition. When Sybel swings out of the doorway to fire at the oncoming stream of reinforcements, he takes single, controlled shots.

  Your head rings and the constant battering of gunfire is maddening. You can feel your sanity drifting away, drowning in a tide of brutality. There is not much time left, and everyone is running low on ammunition. You must hold together and kill the last guard quickly.

  You must now compute a number that will determine the accuracy of your third shot. This number is your Dexterity added to your Will. 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 Sixth Sense, add 2 to this number.

  If you are out of ammunition, or have so little that you do not think you can make an accurate shot, turn to section 73.

  If the number is 8 or less, turn to section 185.

  If the number is between 9 and 14, turn to section 208.

  If the number is 15 or more, turn to section 484.

  489

  In one terrible instant the room erupts in gunfire. Thunder in your skull, flashes of light, the storm of the gods of war. Time slows down as you dive for cover amidst a spray of shards from the wall as bullets fly around you.

  If your Dexterity is 4 or more, turn to section 50.

  If your Dexterity is 3 or less, turn to section 380.

  490

  With a hellish battlecry you run at the thing. It whips about you, arc-fires blazing. Your awareness sharpens and you make out every detail of the shrieking steel coil. You leap to your left, bounce off the wall, and roll away. The thing hisses in frustration: Gain 1 XP.

  You run to the end of the hall and turn a corner. A door lies there. You enter it and leave behind the mist of destruction: Gain 1 XP.

  Turn to section 223.

  491

  You pull the trigger. The gun jerks like lightning in your hand. The flash of the shotgun blast blinds you for an instant, then shards of the wall behind you cover you in a violent cloud. As you blink the debris away you see the smiling revolutionary spinning on his feet, blood dribbling from his chest in a long line. The other fires over and over, his eyes nearly shut, and then two things happen at once: You feel a sharp tearing sting along the fat of your left arm, and as the smiling revolutionary falls he fires into the ground, spraying his comrade’s foot. As you instinctively huddle into yourself, holding your arm close, the scared revolutionary yelps and drops his gun, eyes wide and white with shock.

  It seems one of the wild bullets of the scared revolutionary has punched through your space suit and torn your arm: Lose 4 Blood. If you have any Sticky Fix, you must use one dose to fix your suit; if you do not have this item, make a note that your suit has been damaged.

  If you have died in a hail of gunfire, you may Regenerate by turning back to section 312, or, if you want to go back further, turn back to section 179.

  Be sure to erase the amount of ammunition that you used.

  If you survive, then as you slowly rise to your feet the other revolutionary giv
es vent to a mucus-curdling scream and dashes from the room. “Looks like I’m the last man standing,” you mutter, leaning against a wall, bloody and exhausted. “Too bad survival hurts so bad.”

  You search the bodies of the dead and find the following gear, which you may take with you.

  Krieger-Colt Pump-Action Shotgun (Shotgun, bulk 3)

  4 Shotgun Shells (bulk 1)

  Enforcer Automatic (Handgun, bulk 2)

  Cold Cock Auto (Handgun, bulk 2) (The serial number has been scratched off.)

  7 Handgun Bullets (bulk 1)

  Stellar Corp Law Enforcement Uniform (bulk 2) (Damaged and bloody.)

  Steel Baton (Mace, bulk 2)

  When you are ready to hit the all-you-can-eat buffet (and scoop up some XP), turn to section 260.

  492

  You sit down and relax for a while. For some reason the mercenaries Buford and Cletus wander up, sit near you, and take up where they left off on some argument about various sports teams. Stuck between boredom and frustration you sigh audibly but, before you can rise to leave, Cletus eyes you and says, “Boah, what’s up with that crazy getup, anyhow?”

  “Standard issue vacuum-proof suit and equipment for Jetpack Infantry.” You hear the words tumble out of you as if someone else was saying them. But it feels as if it is right, or at least, as if that’s what you’ve been told.

  “Hell’s that?” says Buford.

  “An army,” you say. “The Black Lance Legion. It’s led by the Shadow Government, whose members broadcast our orders from their hidden base over secret channels. We use technology that’s mostly reverse-engineered Invader gear, as studied by the organization called Black Science. And we, the Black Lance Legion, are waging a guerilla war against the Invader that’s taken over our solar system.”

  After a long pause, the two laugh uproariously. “F’you want my opinion,” says Cletus, as if he’s about to bless you with a glimpse of his narrow-minded vision of the world, “I think you’re crazy.”

  “Good thing I didn’t ask your opinion.”

  “Boah,” says Buford, “you can’t fight the Invader!”

  “Not with that attitude, no,” you say, drawing up defensively. You are, however, concerned about the charges against your sanity. You have questioned it yourself over the past few weeks.

  Cletus grows quiet, then leans forward conspiratorially as he says, “I’ve heard about how they wipe out anyone they want. Earth’s gone black for years now, it’s all one big Invader playground. If it still exists at all. I’ve heard that stations lots better defended than ours just... disappear, man, an’ it happens all the time. People don’t like to talk about it. And I saw with my own eyes how the guns of our station... they just... they had no effect at all on that ship. It was untouchable. That shield -”

  “Believe me,” you say, “they can be fought. And we’ve got the means to do it.”

  “How so?” says Buford, eyeing you seriously.

  “The bullets couldn’t touch the ship because of its shield. The shield is an electromagnetic, invisible barrier operating on a certain frequency. I don’t understand the technology myself, but I know that even high-powered lasers can’t break through, not without knowing the particular shield’s frequency. Our own ships use the same technology.”

  “So what do you do, soldier boy?”

  “That’s where the Jetpack Infantry come in. Theoretically, we fly out from our ship to meet the enemy - and they do the same. Infantry against infantry, hand to hand. The infantry tries to reach the enemy ship and then hack through its shield, cutting temporary holes with weapons charged with their own electromagnetic fields. Swords, maces, spears, things like that, and they’re not cheap to make, I’ve heard. The soul of a soldier is in his weapon, they say. But it takes some time to hack through those shields, time when the enemy can shoot an infantryman down, so by way of distraction our own ship will send out several small bomber ships. These bombers will fly at high speeds and fire missiles at the big capital ship, and some of these missiles are equipped with the same expensive charged fields as our own hand-to-hand weapons. Some of them could cut through the field and damage the capital ship - so it has to assume that they all can, and spend a lot of time shooting the missiles down. That gives an infantryman time to get through the shield and then hack into the ship itself. From there, the troops have to fight their way to the enemy’s shield generator, which is always in a different place in each ship, mind you, and then destroy the shield generator.

  “After that, they have to fight their way back out before their own ship fires its lasers and blasts the enemy ship out of the sky.” You finish, surprised that you knew even that much.

  “Well all I know,” says Buford, grandly looking about as if addressing a stadium full of people, “is that they better have some prime snatch on that ship yer leadin’ us to. Hell, as long as that ship exists, I reckon I’ll be happy!”

  “Naw,” says Cletus, “if it don’t have some primo-snatch, it might as well not exist, cause I know I’d rather just be dead.”

  Enraged, you get up to leave. Behind you, you hear Buford say to his friend, “Know what you mean. If I don’t get it every day, I can get pretty miffed. I’m not used to goin’ without grade-A snatch, you know...”

  If you are skilled in Navigation, turn to section 230.

  If you do not have this skill, or choose not to use it, but Arturo the Navigator Poet is with you, turn to section 12.

  Otherwise, turn to section 203.

  493

  You kick off and reenter the dead room. If you have not picked them up already, you can take either the Knife (Blade, bulk 1) or the Wrench (Mace, bulk 3), or both. Be sure to adjust your inventory accordingly. You see black spots gelling in your vision, and your chest threatens to burst: Lose 2 Blood.

  You float back into the dark antechamber and shut the door behind you.

  If you picked up the Wrench, you can slam it into the control panel by turning to section 265.

  If you took the Knife, you can try to wedge it between the door and wall and pry it open by turning to section 83.

  If you wish to cry out for help, turn to section 523.

  494

  The man stops suddenly, says, “Thought you were dead.”

  His face looks like yours, though rougher. “Who are you?” you say, confused.

  The man stares at you, then forces out a sharp laugh as he continues on. “You always were a little asshole,” he says, “big brother.”

  As the man rejoins his unit, you shout at his back, “Are we brothers? What’s my name? Can I join your unit? Where did we... wait, uh, where did we grow up?” but the man only raises his hand, middle finger extended, without turning back to you. You hear another man call him Kregus.

  Amazing, you think. I have a brother on this ship. You note that the name Kregus does not seem to fit; you have never heard such a name before. In fact, it sounds made up, and so you decide that he was probably given such a name by the Legion. And while it does not seem that he likes you very much, you wish him well in the coming battle.

  Too bad the little bastard couldn’t get you on his unit so you could watch out for him.

  Another unit marches down the hallway. There seems to be little activity behind them, and you wonder if this is your last chance to get into the upcoming battle. You spot the red badge of a Commander, then approach him, saying, “Sir, let me join your unit during the battle.”

  The Commander, a hulking man with dim-witted eyes, barks out, “F’you got papers says you can join the Nagasaki Rams, then alright, but if you doesn’t, then hell no.”

  Walking sideways you say, “Sir there’s no telling where any of my paperwork is, I’ve been stranded for weeks or months and I just want to join a unit so I can -”

  As the towering numbskull shakes his head while you talk, you feel eyes on you and glance at the rear of the unit. There you see a man with a charged mace clanging at his side and your eyes freeze in your skull. The man has
a sheepish expression, pale skin with freckles, reddish blond hair, gaunt features. You can smell his fear. It is John Christian.

  You grab the Commander by the back of his neck and stop him from walking. “Hey!” he shouts.

  Smiling a death’s-head grin and staring through his eyes and into the back of his head, you say, “Let me on your unit and I will spill more blood than any soldier you’ve ever commanded before.”

  The Commander pushes you away and barks out something about paperwork and protocol but you do not listen. As the Nagasaki Rams move down the hallway you stop and watch them go. John Christian glances back at you, mouth hanging open stupidly so that you can see his crooked teeth. And you glare back at him, face stretched out in a psychotic smile. You can feel your heart growing stronger as you eat his fear.

  As they disappear, the hall grows still and quiet. Well, you think, guess I’m not going to get to join anyone. I can either sit here and pray for the best, or sneak out there and risk getting shot by my own comrades...

  Just then, one more unit stomps down the hall toward you, marching and chanting something like a Viking funeral dirge. As they pass through, a lightbulb flickers out and dies, casting them into a preternatural gloom. Their eyes glow with madness. All of their dark space suits are smeared with dried blood on the front. They are human fanatics and it may be better to run and hide than to face them.

  Turn to section 200.

  495

  You focus the brunt of your will into your eyes, boring them into the laborer’s skull. The laborer stares back, and beads of sweat run down his face.

  “Well now,” says the laborer, stalling for time.

  “Shut up.” You glare at him as hard as you can down the barrel of your gun. “Let the girl go. Now.”