Heavy Metal Thunder (24 page)

Suddenly the guard rounds a bend in the far hallway.
He is covered in blood; how much of it is his, you do not know. He shines his
light on you. You can just make out that he is armed with a thick lead pipe. He
suddenly kicks off from a wall and flies toward you, screaming, “YOU! GIMME
THAT GODDAMN SUIT, YOU COWAAAARD!”

If you have a gun and at least one bullet, you can
fire at him by turning to section
486
.

If you wish to draw a hand-to-hand weapon and beat
his ass silly, turn to section
107
.

Otherwise, you can take him down with your bare
hands by turning to section
23
.

You draw your knife and, as the man swings his rifle
wildly, you run into him, jamming the knife into his gut. He shrieks louder
still as you follow through with your charge, slamming him into a wall. You
raise your free
arm,
hold his neck against the wall,
then jam the knife into his gut over and over. He grows limp and pale and you
release him. He falls to the floor, twitching in a pool of his own blood.

Turn to section
530
.

“What are you damn dogs climbing on this thing for
anyway?” you say. “Men are ascended from apes, not you.” You aim the gun. “I
think it’s time to be reminded who runs the food chain around here.”

You blast one dog square in the chest. It cartwheels
into the pack. They thrash about violently, tossing several into the void. You
shoot into the chaotic jumble and more fly off the side. Subtract
2 Handgun
bullets
from your inventory.

While the dogs regroup, you dive under the pillar
and push through the rubble. You hear several dogs jump down into the room
behind you. You rise to your knees on the far side of the pillar. You feel
ahead in the darkness and find a control panel. You pull a small emergency
latch and an unseen door opens, flooding the chamber with light. You enter and
shut the door behind you. The barking of the dogs disappears suddenly.

You have survived your encounter with the dogs: Gain
2 XP.

Turn to section
187
.

You strike, and the guard crumples upon himself,
flies through the air, and slams into your supplies. Red oozes from his ruined
head, encircling him like a halo of blood. You gain 2 XP for killing the guard.

Turn to section
562
.

You walk the cold grey halls until you come to the
entrance to the deck. Two bulky armed guards stop you. One says, “Authorized
personnel only, dipshit.
One-eighty.”

If your
Charisma
is 4 or more and you want to
try to talk your way in, turn to section
268
.

If you wish to tell them that you’re the guy who flew
solo through space to return to the
Penelope’s Vengeance
with a warning,
turn to section
235
.

If you would rather go find the engine room and
check it out, turn to section
272
.

If you would rather check out the lounge, turn to
section
545
.

If you want to go straight to the supply room, turn
to section
410
.

Your awareness seems to fragment as the sense of
impending doom grows and feeds back into you, replacing the blood in your heart
with pure darkness. Slowly you reach behind yourself, grasp your black helm,
and pull it down over your head.

You feel movement around you,
then
words are cut off as you close the dark visor over your face with a loud clunk.
A voice is muffled; you cannot concern yourself with anyone else; you feel as
if all others are already dead except you. You stand rigid, dumb and immobile.

The unthinkable happens. One window of the ship
shatters, blows outward, you see boxes and gear fly
free,
you are tossed but grasp some metal hinge. A large box slams into the opening,
sealing the vacuum off, but before you come to a rest on the ground you see the
metal just in front of your face explode inward as something from the outside
pierces it, then the vacuum sucks against the ship again. Chaos before you,
someone’s limbs flailing, objects crashing against one another.

As you haul yourself towards an exit, two more holes
are blasted into the side of the ship and you know that a sniper is attacking
from a hideout on one of the asteroids. As the vacuum churns within the
Narrenschiff
you clamber into a small
depressurization chamber, lock the door behind you, then kick open the exit
door. Darkness lies before you and you blast your jets on full throttle. All is
silent, but the kick of the jet behind you is a roar of freedom in your blood,
a freedom from all ties as you leave behind the fantasy world of soft things
and enter into the dance of death with which you have become familiar.

A sniper in the service of the Invaders waits for
you on one of the asteroids. Now, finally, you will face the true enemy. And
one of you will die.

You gain
1 XP
for the use of your skill. Turn
to section
247
.

“There’s no point in doing this!” you say. “I’m not
giving up the suit, and this labor-bot is just going to crush me and the suit
to a pulp - if you can control it that well. Be reasonable, man, and use the
next few minutes before the station is destroyed to think of your own way out
of here!”

“Give up the suit,” says the manager, maneuvering
the giant robot toward you. “Give me the suit, and then you can think of
another way out of here.”

If your
Charisma
is 2 or more, you can keep
trying to talk to him by turning to section
306
.

If your
Intelligence
is 3 or more, you can
use that big brain of yours to argue with the manager by turning to section
125
.

If you are skilled in the use of
Computers
,
you can use this Skill against the robot by turning to section
426
.

If your Stats are not this high, or you do not have
this Skill, then you will have to fight or evade the robot. Turn to section
5
.

“Number Thirteen! You no-name
sumbitch
!”
Commander Uther says over the com-link. “Where the hell are you?!”

“I was, uh -”

“Nevermind!
If you’re still alive, form up. We’re going to hit that ship.”

In the distance, you see the seven lights of your
comrades
break away from the melee. The Invader ship seems
very far away, and you know that its lasers can create a no-man’s-land for
infantry. Your helm beeps and you glance back at the
Penelope’s Vengeance
as several wings of bomber units blast out from her docking bays. You hope that
they can distract the Invader ship long enough for you to get inside and
destroy her shield generator.

The heavy metal grinding in your head drowns out
fear once more as you form up beside your fanatical brothers, jets wailing full-blast.
No one speaks.
The bombers streak ahead of you, small
unshielded black ships.

Your helm hums strangely,
then
Commander Uther says, “We’re getting in range of that ship’s shield.
Spearmen, up front.
Everyone else in back.
Get ready to hack through.”

If you are armed with a
Spear
, turn to
section
139
.

If you are armed with anything else, turn to section
20
.

You enter a restroom with an exit on the far side. A
dead man with a gun in his hand and a gunshot wound in the chest rests below a
urinal. His self-inflicted wound was not his last act, for you see a great
proclamation written in blood above him. It reads

REPENT
SINNERS? WHAT FOR!

THE INVADER
COMES

KING AND
FOOL DIE ALIKE

INVADER IS
HERE AND WILL END US ALL!

NOW CAN I
HAVE A RAISE

Invader
.
Your mind races.
The Great Invasion… the end of the
human species!

With a terrific shock, part of your memory races back.
You remember the human species at the height of its being, great nations and
corporations sending pioneers out from the cradle of the earth to harvest the
bounty of the solar system. Wealth flowed and some men became like gods. Then
came
the Invader. They never communicated with us, never
told us their true name, only brushed through our system’s defenses analogous
to hot knives and butter and wiped every major city from the face of the doomed
earth. It has been three years since that terrible time and even to this day
they are idly wiping out the last few space stations that still gather
resources from the Belt and from the inner planets.

Humanity has lost every single space battle,
utterly. But one battle, one single lost battle, resulted in the capture of a
small alien vessel which was secreted away. A group of determined scientists
reverse-engineered the thing. They created a hidden refuge called Black Heaven,
then built ships of their own. A human space army, the Black Lance Legion, was
formed. Though you cannot remember the details, you became a part of it. You
have lived under a totalitarian regime and have been trained for one purpose:
To conduct a guerilla war against the Invasion force and take back the blood
that was stolen from your kind.

The cobwebs and mist that cloud your mind begin to
clear, and the particulars of your training seem to make sense. The Black Lance
Legion has taught you several skills so that you may effectively fight the
enemy that seeks to make your solar system his home. Below is a list of
nineteen skills available to Jetpack Infantrymen.
You may choose 5 in which
you are proficient.

Navigation.
The ability to make sense of the hidden paths within the
void.
Skilled navigators can use the stars and planets as guides to find
the quickest routes through the solar system. Becoming lost in the void can be
a fate worse than death in battle.

Computers.
Knowledge of the various systems built by humans that store
and retrieve information and guide machines.
Even without this skill you
can still use a computer, as can most humans in the space age. However, this
skill will give you the upper hand in making any program do what you want.

Stealth.
The ability to move about unseen and unheard.
In this
era, Stealth also includes an understanding of how to hide your infantry
armor’s
various electronic, heating, and other apparatuses
prone to remote detection by the enemy.

Pilot Ship: Small.
The ability to pilot the smaller commercial and military
spaceships made by humans.
Includes use of older
pre-Invasion ships as well as the newer, advanced ships.
The controls of
spaceships are very complicated, and without this skill you will be almost
completely clueless about ship functions.

Demolitions.
Knowledge of the ingredients of explosive materials and the
know-how to put a simple bomb together.

Jetpack Skill.
Every Space Infantryman understands the basics of piloting his own jetpack.
This skill will give you greater understanding of jetpack piloting, jetpack
maintenance, and knowledge of the Legion’s more advanced jetpack models.

Weapon Proficiency: Hand-to-Hand.
With the introduction of bulletproof energy shields and jetpack infantry that
can move faster than bullets, close-in combat has become important on the
battlefield. A good infantryman can outmaneuver and kill enemies up close,
pierce the shields of enemy ships, and hack through hulls using the expensive,
energy-producing weapons made by the Black Lance Legion. If you pick this
skill, you will be proficient in the use of one type of H-to-H weapon:
Blades
,
which includes knives and swords;
Maces
, which includes heavy blunt
weapons like steel batons and maces; or
Spears
, the long, piercing
weapons of the Legion. Blades are good for slashing flesh and hacking off
limbs, Maces are good for bashing armor and bones, and Spears work well if your
enemy is some distance away, or when used in groups of other spearmen. You may
select proficiency in one of these weapons if you choose this skill, but you
may choose this skill more than once if you desire proficiency in more than one
type of H-to-H weapon.

Weapon Proficiency: Ranged.
Knowledge of the Way of the Gun.
Energy shields are
expensive to make, and are not widely used; plus, to kill from afar is still
the safest path in war. If you choose this skill, you will be proficient in the
use of one type of gun:
Rifles
, which includes long-range single shot
rifles and automatic rapid-fire rifles;
Handguns
, which include small
automatic handguns and older revolvers; or
Shotguns
, which are the heavy
bruisers of gun warfare. You may choose this skill more than once if you desire
proficiency in more than one type of ranged weapon. Note that once you have
chosen to fire a gun at the enemy, you must fire at least one bullet, even if
you realize afterwards that you have no hope of hitting the enemy!