Heavy Metal Thunder Page 5

  Finally, you spot a ship that might be perfect. You can make your way toward it by turning to section 329.

  54

  You grip the tear in your suit with both hands, but it is simply too long and jagged to keep out the vacuum. Within seconds you feel ice forming on your leg, burning against your nerves. You can no longer breathe. Soon, you feel nothing save the need to sleep. You decide to take a nap. Just for a minute. You’ve earned it.

  You have died in the cold, hungry vastness of space, one more victim of the great Invaders.

  THE END.

  Regeneration: You may return to section 179 and try again, if you wish.

  55

  You fall through inky black. Soon it becomes impossible to tell that you are moving at all. You throw your hands in front of your head, then you collide with some hard surface. You instinctively click your teeth and your helmet light turns on.

  You are in a wide, curving, steel-grey hallway. Its smoothness is punctuated by the ragged hole through which you entered. Loose objects float free in a cloud of dust. You feel the rumble of the scavenging machines far away.

  You shine your light down both ends of the hallway. Both directions seem alike in their sinister austerity.

  If you wish to float down the hall towards your right, then turn to section 42.

  If you would rather try for the left, turn to section 566.

  56

  “Okay,” you say. “Get on.”

  The man nods once, then limps his way past you. He leaves a few droplets of blood in his wake.

  “Got a name, homie?” you say.

  Without stopping he turns his head back to you and says, “Arturo.”

  Make a note that Arturo the Navigator Poet has joined you.

  Turn to section 405.

  57

  As you dash along the ground on your hands and knees, tables before and behind you explode in wild sprays of shotgun fire, then shards of the wall behind you blast apart and spray into your face and eyes. The dead man’s gun lies so close, so deadly close.

  You must now compute a number that determines whether or not you are hurt during your mad dash. This number is your Dexterity. If you are trained in Stealth, add 2 to this number. If you have Sixth Sense, add 1.

  As you scramble to reach the gun, you lose 7 Blood, but you may reduce this amount by the number you computed.

  If you die, then one blast from the revolutionary’s shotgun narrowly misses the wall - because about a pound of buckshot lands squarely inside your head. The last thing you see is a handful of brain matter spilling out of the new cavity where your nose and jaw used to be. If you wish to Regenerate, you may turn to section 312 to restart or, if you want to go back even farther, turn back to section 179.

  If you survive, then you manage to grab the dead lawman’s Enforcer Automatic (Handgun, bulk 2), which has 5 Handgun Bullets (bulk 1) in its clip.

  “Payback,” you mutter to yourself. “And believe me, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it’s going to hurt me.”

  Turn to section 568.

  58

  You fall in with the seven fanatics and march with them toward the launch bay. “I’m Commander Uther,” says the leader. “You got a name?”

  “SIR NO SIR!”

  Commander Uther glances to another fanatic, a slender, tall man with pale skin, fair hair, and a massive bruise around one eye. The man looks at you a moment, as if reading you, then says, “He has no name, Commander. Not yet.”

  Commander Uther nods to you, says, “That’s Sybel, our dream interpreter. He’ll determine the nature of your name, once you pull it out of the void.”

  “SIR, THAT’S COOL BY ME, SIR!” you shout.

  You enter the large launching bay where several infantry units are gathered. Many clustered groups shuffle away as you and the fanatics stroll toward the front, near the solid steel doors. One man lingers too long and Sybel hisses at him like a wildcat, and the man averts his eyes and shuffles away, lumbering under the weight of his jet pack.

  You can smell the fear in the room and see the looks of desperation in the eyes of the fighters. Only the fanatics seem hard and ready. You see your brother Kregus but he will not look at you, only strokes the edge of his long black serrated sword, which is bigger than any you have seen so far. His unit, the Geneva Scorpions, hum some sort of old national anthem, most likely from a nation long-since destroyed by the Invaders.

  You watch the infantrymen as you wait to launch. You note that the human fanatics do not seem bigger or stronger than anyone else. But their expressions lack both the cunning guile used by some to sneak through life, as well as the sheepish look of many who depend on the mercy of their masters to survive. You realize that most soldiers fight the Invader because they are told to do so by those in authority, and would probably bow down to their conquerors if they did not fear punishment from their immediate supervisors. A full-scale alien invasion that, if done successfully, would end in the eradication of the human species, is for most humans just one more inconvenient annoyance to avoid, to complain about… and to eventually give in to.

  But the human fanatics, newly awakened and unified by the presence of a common foe, would do anything to protect their species from this alien menace. Their power stems from this, and this power is fearful indeed.

  An announcement goes out that the chamber will be depressurized, and so everyone dons their helms. Your com-link clicks on and Commander Uther says, “Grishnak, play us some music. Something in the key of heavy.”

  “SIR!” you shout. “YOU GUYS LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE YOU FIGHT?”

  “Better believe it,” says Uther.

  “BUT HOW DO YOU HEAR COMMANDS IF-” Immediately your voice is drowned out by the most bone-crunching flesh-thrashing heavy metal music you have ever heard in your life. It is impossible to feel anything remotely resembling fear as the singer’s voice screams out gravelly war-cries. Your ears writhe in agony but your blood pumps hard and pure... and you feel ready to kill and die for your species!

  The music dims slightly and Commander Uther says, “Grishnak, you tryin’ to put us to sleep around here? I said play something heavy!”

  With that, your com-link earphones are nearly blown out as the metalest of the heavy-est of songs blasts out, drums throbbing like the skin of some god stretched out on a rack and beaten, guitars thrashing like two planets slamming and scraping against one another, a manbeast singing with a voice most likely surgically enhanced to bring out the thousand-and-one devils hiding in his black psyche. Your brain shakes in its case and it is beautiful.

  The grey steel doors open before you. The black of space awaits the clash of warrior tribes. Gravity dims beneath your feet as all units surge forward, then blast away from the Penelope’s Vengeance.

  Turn to section 161.

  59

  Days pass in the ruined hull of the Narrenschiff, the Ship of Fools, chained to the pilot’s chair in your space suit. You eat the food of the aliens. The lights flicker, grow dim, and you become convinced that the ship’s clock is malfunctioning. Is plotting against you. You realize that days no longer exist. Only the journey exists. Though your mind breaks down, survival remains.

  In between passing out, floating and asleep, you sometimes feel the presence of the Invader ship. You become convinced that it has found you, that you have long since been captured, your memory erased, your personality stripped away, and your life is now one long psychological torture within some alien machine. And if you break, screaming for mercy, you know they will unplug the machine and beat your skull open with baseball bats. Faceless, they will laugh at you, and their goat-horns will shake with mirth at your weakness. You cannot break. You cannot scream. The only thing keeping you alive is your connection to the torture machine they have hooked you up to. You cannot break that connection...

  There comes a time when your helm computer beeps harshly, an alarm. Even the outdated scanner of the Narrenschiff reports some faint energy readings, though
it often loses the signal. You swing the ship around, your hands shaking on the controls. A black ship is following you - you realize that you are about to be killed, for the Invader ship has found you.

  Narrenschiff’s radio seems dead, but your helm radio blares in your ears. Unendurable, horrible alien sounds. Your ears have grown sensitive in the silence of the vacuum. You cannot make out the harsh, alien words. You open your own communicator, then reply, “I’ll never break, you alien bastards. You hear me? I’ll die before I break!” Your own voice sounds distorted, broken.

  “Skkkkkk repeat, identify at once -”

  “Kill you,” you mutter, swinging the Narrenschiff about once more, prepared to ram the Invader ship. “Take you to Hell with me, alien bastards.”

  “ - need of assistance, then skkkkkk -tify self, or cut your engines so we can board skkkk -”

  Your helm casts a green overlay on top of the long black ship. Your helm computer identifies the ship, but it does so incorrectly. Then you curse the Invaders still more, for the cunning, cowardly monsters have infected your own helm with a virus.

  “You tricky bastards,” you mumble. “You think you can fool me? You can identify yourself as my own Black Lance Legion ship, but I’ll never believe it.”

  “Unidentified ship,” says the human-sounding voice over the radio, “lay down arms and prepare to be boarded.”

  Never, you say to yourself, shaking and exhausted. Your helm identifies the Invader ship as the Penelope’s Vengeance, which you remember now was your own Black Lance Legion ship, the one you have been trying to reach the entire time. The aliens have stolen your own memories and are using them against you. You grasp a weapon in weak, unsteady hands, then swear that you will not go down without a fight as you slump over the control panel. A short rest, you tell yourself, then you will fight them all to the death...

  Turn to section 423.

  60

  You charge the beast, weapon extended. It hops backwards and you slam your spear into the ground, then take the butt end of it in your own gut, falling back. The beast smacks you senseless with a steel tentacle, then dives onto you. You whirl desperately, knocking tentacles away with your weapon. The deconstructor flops sideways and you bring your weapon up, then slam it down hard, battering the monster’s casing. Its tentacles flail wildly, desperate to protect itself, and your knees buckle as you are smacked from behind. With a womanly shriek of outrage you jam the spear into the thing’s side, forcing the blunt metal in between the plates, then pry its torso apart. The thing screeches and dies, impaled on your weapon. You fall over in exhaustion.

  You lose 3 Blood in the fight. If your Blood has dropped to zero or less, then you find it impossible to rise because you are too busy being dead… the newest victim of the ghost station.

  If you have survived the terrible fight, turn to section 298.

  61

  You hide the bomb on the floor inside the entrance and, with an evil giggle, leave the room and continue down the hall to the dock command station.

  The red emergency lights glare with portents of doom as you pass through the hall, wary of the manager. The hallway ends at a curving branch. Many doors are labeled for entrances to the docks; strange, to think that a vacuum lies just beyond those walls. You follow signs along one wall until you come to a door marked, “DOCK COMM STATION - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.”

  The dock command station is dark, but still has gravity and air. You notch your helm into place and click the light on. Unlike the gentle tan of the hallway, the command station is steel-grey. The room is huge, full of control panels, chairs, papers, equipment everywhere. A window covers the entire front section. You look out and see the vast expanse of a ruined dock. Blasted hulls float, charred and weightless. You even see a clump of red ice which may have once been a man. A large steel net rotates slowly just outside the window; you can use that later to haul your supplies through space.

  Far down the station you see two service vehicles and protruding fuel lines. You jog to the area, see steel canisters. You haul them to the fuel lines, then jam a line into one. The pump is labeled, “LIQUID HYDROGEN - CAUTION!” While you cannot remember if the Black Lance Legion used anything different for their machines, nothing really tells you otherwise. You turn the pump on and the canister jerks a little while the pump hums with life. You breathe a sigh of relief, then jam more steel canisters onto separate pumps.

  You take a quick glance at the equipment littering the room. Nothing seems useful - then you notice a bulky hand-held computer with a wide screen labeled, “STELLAR NAVIGATION UNIT”. Upon closer examination, it seems the device is full of star charts, maps of the Asteroid Belt, and even notes the locations of other STELLAR stations. The nearest station, another asteroid mining complex, while still incredibly far away, seems that it might even be along the same route taken by your Legion ship - and the hunting Invader ship. Of course, the estimate is approximate; minor deviations in flight paths in space can end up at vastly different points. Still, the machine provides some hope, for the next station is a place that you could journey to and at least get some kind of ship. Perhaps your memory will return by then and you will know where your own ship is headed.

  If you are skilled in the use of Computers, you can download the navigation data directly into your helm computer. Otherwise, you must take the Navigation Computer (bulk 3) with you. If you do not have enough room in your inventory, you must discard enough items to leave room for the necessary computer.

  The transport vehicles seem to be empty of fuel. In another corner you find a huge array of steel O2 tanks and an electronic handcart. While the fuel pumps hum, you haul oxygen tanks onto the hand cart, then push them into the hall near an entrance to the docks. You lift one off and carefully set it down - then, realizing your need for speed, kick the whole cart over and dump them all noisily into the hallway. You continue the process over and over.

  After you have filled the hallway with oxygen tanks, you push the cart all the way back to the lounge. Over and over you stack up heavy jars full of water and boxes of food, then carry the lot all the way to the dock hallway and leave them there. So taxing is the work that you lose 2 Blood, and you are also temporarily drained of 1 Strength point. If your Strength has already been drained to zero even before now, then you must lose another point of Blood instead of having a Strength score of less than zero.

  Suddenly, an explosion rocks the hall. You panic for a moment, thinking the hull has been breached and that you will lose your supplies. Nothing happens. You jog down the hallway, then see smoke drifting out from the main comp station. You peer inside. The place is a mess, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment in shambles. Then you see a smear on the wall, something like hair plastered into ketchup. A severed finger juts out of the doorway. You enter and slip on something banana-peel style and crash to the floor. You look about. Either someone has chosen to dump a cartload of barbecued sausage links for a discount meat sale, or you have indeed caught the manager in your trap. Since there are no for-sale signs around, you’re betting on the latter. You laugh with relief, then continue on with your work.

  Perhaps an hour passes before you think you might have enough supplies. Then, without warning, the lights flicker and go black. Even the red alarms continue on for only a few seconds, before they, too, are cut off. The whir of the air conditioning system clicks off, and you rise off the floor slowly. You can hear rumbling, grinding, far away. The backup generators have been destroyed and more deconstructors are tearing their way through the station. The end is near. You kick off a wall and check the fuel canisters. You disconnect one, glad to see that it is full, then attach a line from your jetpack and refuel yourself. You seal the canisters, then kick them into the hallway and gather them near the rest of your supplies.

  Near exhaustion, your heart races with the hope of escaping this ghost station. You kick off and stop at the door to the ruined dock, so that you can follow through with the la
st part of your plan to escape.

  You gain 2 XP for killing the manager. Turn to section 555.

  62

  You coolly blast the smiling revolutionary in the chest and watch, in crystal-clear detail, as he stumbles backward. He looks down and his smile fades as a thick line of blood runs down his chest. As he falls backward he grabs onto his friend and jerks him sideways. Before the second revolutionary can recover, your gun barks again and sends him spinning. He sprays a fine red mist along the nearby wall, then falls near his dead comrade.

  You stand up and look at the wall behind you. It is completely riddled with bullets, as if you were the poster boy for Swiss cheese. “Damn I’m good,” you say. You gain 1 XP for being such a smooth operator.

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

  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.

  63

  You orient yourself so that you are on a level plane with John Christian, then float alongside him. You can dimly make out his face behind his dark helm visor. He appears nervous, then taps his helm repeatedly. It is a signal that he wants you to lay your helm against his, an old space man’s trick for communicating during radio failures with your helms touching, sound can move between your helms and you can speak to one another.