Heavy Metal Thunder (20 page)

Maybe I deserve to die
,
you think.

There is a terrific rush and it seems the whole
world in front of you turns into a whirlwind. There is a flash of intense
light, then complete darkness. Suddenly you are whipped off your feet, flying
through cold nothingness. You see the flashes of helm lights darting past you,
around you, then your own helm light clicks on and you see twisted metal,
layers of steel bent and shattered in an instant. Then you are jerked sideways
in a rush of air, like a dead soul whipped free from the bounds of its earthly
body.

An eternity squeezed into a moment passes,
then
you are thrown into open space. The mangled bodies of
dead aliens spin all around you, freezing, twitching feebly. You see the lights
of jetpacks as your
comrades
fly away from the blasted
hull. All at once your senses return, and you hear Commander Uther shouting,
“Fly! Get out of there!”

I’m alive!
you
think.
Alive!
You blast your jetpack to
life and follow your comrades through space, away from the Invader ship.

If your space suit has been destroyed during the
attack on the Invader ship, turn to section
393
.

If it is whole or only a little damaged, turn to
section
585
.

You stalk down the hallway. Your jetpack is an
incredible hindrance now, and you consider casting it aside. But the thought is
squashed immediately, as if some ingrained programming has enslaved you to the
device. When you stop to rest, you can almost hear the grinding of the
malicious deconstructors.

You come to a doorway at the end of the hall. You
brace yourself,
then
open it. What you see looks like
a circus from the depths of Hell.

Turn to section
110
.

You float through black nothingness for days, then
weeks. The rush you felt in surviving the ghost station melts down into a sort
of slow-burning insanity. There is nothing to do but stare ahead at a field of
unmoving stars. You break the monotony by unfolding your Wilderness Void Tent
for the purposes of eating, drinking, switching out oxygen, and refueling. But,
aware that you have a long, long way to go, you develop a game with one simple
rule: To go as long as you can without refueling in any way. It is the worst
game you have ever played, and winning one soul-numbing round only earns you
the right to play another equally tortuous round.

Several days into your journey you find that your
helm computer has a number of songs stored in its memory. You are overjoyed, as
if a thousand Christmases have just exploded in your face. You listen to the
music, not caring what it sounds like, smiling so hard your gums ache. Then, in
horror, you realize that the music... is terrible. Overly emotional singers
moan about hard times, broken hearts and futility to the accompaniment of
instrumentalists who seem to be sliding into drug-induced comas.

Why
did she leave me for a more-hung dude?

In
a world so grey it’s both pale and grey

Getting
off the couch is punishment enough

Help,
I just got ripped off for five dollars...

“What is this shit?!” you scream maniacally, a
little intimidated by your own vehemence. You see that the music was downloaded
from a network called Black Lance Legion
Funnertainment
by one Mr. Wiggles. You decide that you have been tricked into wearing someone
else’s infantry helm (
of course
you wouldn’t have such a ridiculous
name!), then you find a photo identity file in the helm’s computer. Next to a
picture of your face is the name Mr. Wiggles. The face looks slightly softer
than the reflection you saw in the ghost station, but it is undeniably you. In
disgust, you erase every sad-sap song from your computer helm.

Better to die of boredom than languish
in misery,
you decide.
In fact, better to die
than
be
that person at all
.

Weeks pass and the boredom
becomes
intolerable.

If you have any books or magazines, including,
“Guide
to Marcella
Mercerism
”
,
“Economic Independence
Through Relaxing Visualization”
,
“Mike, Leon, Don, Ralph: Getting In
Touch With Your Personality Type and Your Mutant Spirit Animal”
,
“Guide
to STELLAR CORP
Infotech
”
, or
“Men’s Health
“Nut” Magazine”
, then turn to section
480
.

If you have none of these entertaining and
brightly-colored books or magazines, turn to section
527
.

You freeze, click your teeth in such a way to turn off
your helm light, and listen intently. Soon you hear rasping breath, harsh
panting forced through a thin face mask. You can just faintly make out the
voice of the manager over the radio, sounding equal parts panicky and intent. A
hand-held light flashes in a far corridor.

If you are trained in
Stealth
, and would like
to use this Skill, turn to section
167
.

If you do not have this Skill, or would not like to
use it, turn to section
215
.

The thing grows and grows in your vision, dull grey
with glistening blue channels. Just before you touch down on its rounded
surface, quick-moving tentacles swirl all around, straining to touch you. How
the things can see you, can be aware of your presence, is beyond you. How
something can be alive in the vacuum... you reach down and touch the skin of
the thing. It feels both hard and rubbery, with no warmth at all.

You shine your helm light around the massive
organism. There are many fields of tentacles. Farther off, you see a dark hole.
On the opposite side of you, you see some sort of grey mound. There are also
shimmering blue channels running throughout the surface.

If you wish to investigate some of the waving
tentacles, turn to section
402
.

If you want to check out the hole, turn to section
526
.

If the mound seems more your thing,
turn to section
300
.

If you want to follow some of the blue channels,
turn to section
373
.

The guard flies at you face-first. You aim your gun,
saying, “Batter up!” The guard realizes his mistake and flails his limbs about
as he floats nearer. You blast him in his head and his body jerks and
convulses. He knocks into you, blood pouring from his head. You try to knock
him away, grossed out by the incident.

Be sure to erase the amount of ammunition that you
used. You gain
2 XP
for killing the guard.

Turn to section
562
.

“You goddamn pansy,” you say, gritting your teeth as
the doctor bears his weight into you. You pull his wrists into the air as hard
as you can; the doctor lurches forward, off balance. “I think you need some o’
your own medicine,” you say as you bend his wrists around. He squeals and you
jam the syringe into his chest. You raise a foot and jam it into the plunger.
Some of the stuff shoots into him before he shakes wildly and breaks the
syringe off. With renewed energy he breaks free from you, stumbles across the
room and slams into a table, knocking vials and jars over as he crashes into
the ground.

“Now it ain’t
nothin
’
to cry about,”
you say, getting up. You stand over
him. He jerks about on the ground, flailing his arms and frothing at the mouth.
He arches his back,
then
throws up onto his own face.
The last words he hears are your low-brow comments on the matter.

You gain
1 XP
for use of your Strength and
1
XP
for slaying the mad doctor.

Turn to section
269
.

You fire and watch in fascination as one Invader’s
neck tears open in a spray of wild goo. As he drops the others fire at you. You
swing back around the corner as two of the Invaders take cover in the other
hall where your comrades are waiting. You hear Marcus holler a crazed
battlecry
, which is drowned out by the thunder of gunfire.
You lean back around the corner in time to see two alien bodies torn asunder by
your comrades. Blood and bullets slam into the far wall and you aim your gun at
the last alien as he turns and flees. Just as a bullet crashes into his side,
he fires at you and the bullet whizzes past your knee, raking off some precious
meat with it.

You lose
2 Blood
and
1 SD.

If you die, then you may
Regenerate
by turning back to section
161
.

If you survive, then you gain
2 XP
for
wasting an alien Invader. Be sure to erase the amount of ammunition that you
used.

The others come stomping down the hall and you rush
to rejoin them.

Turn to section
416
.

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, you feel
a terrible fire along the side of your neck as the dead alien’s bullet tears
through your neckpiece and slides along flesh before burning through the back
of your suit.

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

If you die, then you feel your suit filling with hot
blood. “Hey Marcus,” you say, though your voice seems dim in your ears. “Man, I
totally wasted those alien... guards...” As you fall down more corpse than man,
Marcus seems unimpressed. You may
Regenerate
by
turning back to section
161.

If you survive, then you feel about your neck, heart
racing as you curse the dead monster. You are lucky: The bullet has only torn
out a chunk of meat, but no vital tubing has been laid open.

Turn to section
520
.

You drag the dead men into a small storage room.

You may add
6 Foods
to the
Narrenschiff’s
supplies.

You try not to think of where it came from.

Turn to section
289
.

You enter a dimly-lit bar with an exit at the far side.
Bullet holes riddle the walls and every single bottle of booze has been reduced
to shards of wet, colored glass, as though a Puritan did bring justice here.
You see a backlit poster with an image of a strange spaceship floating in a
field of angry-looking red stars. It has the look of propaganda. There is text
on the poster that reads

DO
NOT PANIC AT TALK OF THE INVADER!

IS
HE HERE YET? THERE’S WORK TO BE DONE!

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 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.