Heavy Metal Thunder (33 page)

You silently push off from the floor and float away
from the door. You touch the ceiling, turn yourself around, and push off again.
“I’m not
fallin
’ for that old trick,” you say to
yourself.

You bounce down the hallway. It seems longer than
you remembered. The pain in your chest becomes unbearable. You notice that the
hissing in your ears becomes quieter with each second
until,
finally, it is only an intermittent rasp. You suck in half a breath. You
exhale,
then
strain as hard as you can to breathe in
anything.

There is no more air left, only pain and a horrible
weakening in all of your limbs. You reach the gap in the hull where you first
entered. Black spots in your vision cloud over the stars. You wonder at it all.
You feel something like anger mixed with sleepiness.

You extend your middle finger. The universe claims
you once again.

You have died in the cold of space
without knowing who you are
.

THE END.

“Now
looky
here, sir,” you
say. “This fighting isn’t going to get us anywhere - in fact, it’ll set us
back, what with the chances for damaging the suit or this robot. I have a
proposal: You let me control the robot, and I’ll gather supplies for whoever
gets out of this station-”

“You’d just use the robot to kill me!” says the
manager.

“It would be much more to my benefit to use a robot
designed to move supplies around - to actually use it as such, rather than
waste time trying to murder someone. Anyone I’ve killed, I assure you, I did it
in self-defense. So give me control of the robot. I’ll have it gather
supplies.”

“And then you’re going to escape the station and
leave me here to die!”

“Well, sure, I’m going to try to. However, you’ll
still have the option of sneaking up on me and killing me - and getting my suit
so that you can take the supplies and fly out of here. If that’s what you want
to do.”

There is silence for a long time on the other end of
the line. Suddenly the robot backs away and seems to relax, then says, “THIS
LABOR ROBOT UNIT SET TO COMPLY TO NEW USER’S VERBAL COMMANDS.
STANDING BY.”

You let out a great sigh, hardly believing that the
manager bought that line. “Alright, robot,” you say. “Pick up all those food
stuffs there and set them down outside the docks, near the dock command
station. And gather all the water supplies out of that side room and set them
down in the same area. Got it?”

“YES, SIR,” says the robot. It rolls forward and you
move out of its way as it bends to organize and lift several of the food boxes.
You turn your thoughts to the fuel lines. You jog down the hall while the robot
continues its work.

You gain
1 XP
for use of your Stat and a
further
1 XP
for overcoming the robot.

Turn to section
475
.

As you remove the heavy canisters from the dead fuel
lines, you stop suddenly. You can almost hear something in the hallway - or at
least, you think you hear something. You quickly kick away from the canisters
and hide behind a desk. You wait for a moment, feeling a little foolish. But
your evasion pays off; you hear the door to the hall being manually forced
open. A light shines into the room, passing about slowly like some hunter. You
hear a radio sputter and the panicky voice of the guard says something before
the radio clicks off. The stalker - most likely the manager - kicks away from
the door and the light disappears. When you are sure he is gone, you breathe a
sigh of relief and silently float from your hiding spot and remove the rest of
the fuel canisters.

You realize you have no reason to trust the manager.

You gain
1 XP
for successful use of your
Skill. Turn to section
431
.

You stare down the barrel of your gun. The man and
girl’s heads shuffle back and forth.

“Drop the gun,” you hiss. “And maybe I’ll let you
live.”

“Shoot him!” the girl shrieks at you, struggling
wildly. “
Shoot him in the face!
”

“Don’t do it! You’ll hit the girl!” says the priest.
“We can use her to rebuild the species once the Invaders leave! She’s
everything... everything!”

“Get out of here, both of you!” bellows the laborer.
“So my wife and I can die in peace!”

If you want to stare down the laborer and psych him
out, turn to section
146
.

If you have a bullet and want to try to shoot the
laborer, turn to section
135
.

You are wearing a padded black outfit and a lean
black helmet that look undeniably militant in nature. A yellow patch is fixed
to your left breast, and this is the only marking of rank that you can see.
Multiple jets arc outward from the machine strapped to your back. You wear a
thick utility belt, and an empty holster rests at your hip. You know that you
wear the garb of a killer. Far away, the malevolent machines outside the window
seem to flutter about your shadow.

You stare closer at yourself. Though you cannot
remove your mask, you can make out some of the features of your face through
your dark visor: a vicious hawk nose, dark skin, deep-set eyes lost in shadow.

Through the dark fog of your memory some aspects of
your nature come back to you.

Underneath your protective armor lies a human being,
unique from all others. But you live in a cold universe, and it is often the
simplest traits that help you survive the war that is life. The person that is
you can be reduced to five statistics:
Strength
,
Intelligence
,
Dexterity
,
Charisma
, and
Will
. You begin the game of life with
a score of
1 in each stat.
As you have grown and developed, you have
gained 3
additional points
which you may now distribute among your statistics any
way that you see fit. How you distribute your bonus points will help determine
the nature of your character and how you interact with the universe.

Strength
- Physical musculature, endurance, athletic prowess. A high score in this stat
will make you a more powerful warrior. A low score will make you a tired
weakling.

Intelligence
- Mental computing ability, creativity, cleverness, wisdom, and understanding
of the nature of things. A high score in this stat will help you outwit the
enemy and keep ahead of the competition. A low score will make it difficult for
you to grasp some concepts.

Dexterity
- Your flexibility, agility, reflexes, sense of
kinesthetics
,
and ability to fire a gun accurately. A high score in this stat will help you
pull off tricky maneuvers. A low score will make you a clumsy person.

Charisma
- Force of character, social grace, good looks, aura of charm, ability to lead.
A high score in this stat will make others trust you. A low score will cause
others to shun and distrust you.

Will
- Beneath the
thin veneer of your personality, behind everything you learn and all the
choices you make, there is the raw force that drives you. A high score in this stat
will help you to keep going where others have failed. A low score will make you
a weak, spineless person. One can even have a battle of Wills with others.

During the course of your life you will gain
experience and advance in character levels. When this happens, you will earn
more points that you may distribute among your statistics. In some rare
instances your statistics may be temporarily lowered. For instance, great
injury can lower your Strength or Dexterity, confusion can lower your
Intelligence or Charisma, and a great ordeal can lower your Will.

(Hint: While a 2 in any score is better than a 1,
having a 3 in one score may give you an edge in some situations. Still, it is a
risky gamble, as you do not have many skill points that you can distribute at
your current level.)

The hissing in your ears sputters out. You suck in
half a breath,
then
there is nothing. You are out of
air. You turn and see a door that leads deeper into the station. With no
guarantee that the entire station is not open to the vacuum, you open the door
and enter.

Turn to section
133
.

You rush the Captain as he levels his revolver at
your chest and tries to whip you in the eyes with his belt.

You must now compute a number that will determine
the outcome of the battle. This number is your
1 G Combat
stat
added to your
Strength
stat. If you are skilled
in
Weapon Proficiency: Hand-to-Hand
, and it is with a weapon you are
using, add 3 to this number. If you are using a
Spear
, add 3 to this
number; if you are using
any other weapon
, add 1.

In the wild flurry of limbs you lose
11 Blood
,
but you may subtract the number above from this amount. (You may also subtract
your
Defense
stat from this amount if you happen to be wearing any
armor.)

If you lose more than
2 Blood
during the
fight, then a wild shot from the Captain’s revolver catches you near your shin,
puncturing your suit: Lose
1 SD.

If you die, you may
Regenerate
by turning back to section
312
, or, if you want go further
back, turn to section
179
.

If you survive, then once the red fury dims from
your eyes you see the dead Captain lying at your feet: Gain
1 XP.
You
may take his
Old School Revolver (Handgun, bulk 2)
and
3 Handgun
bullets (bulk 1)
if you wish.

You turn toward the ship. While the laborers stare
at you in terror, the guards laugh. “Ahoy,
Cap’n
!”
one of them shouts, high-fiving the other.

Guess he wasn’t too popular around here
,
you think. “Back to work!” you shout.

Turn to section
379
.

Soon, your food runs out. You climb into your
Wilderness Void Tent and look over the strange meat flowers you picked off the
Invaders’ pet. The thought of eating the stuff fills you with disgust; the
flowers are attached to Invader culture and are thus worthy of being smashed.
But you do not have a choice. Survival dictates that you commit acts that are
morally repugnant.

You warm up the meat, gagging the whole time. You
take a bite…

“This crap isn’t half bad!” you mumble.

With careful rationing, the meat flowers sustain you
for several days.

Erase the
Pork
Chop
Flowers
from your inventory,
then
turn to section
469
.

You blast ahead. Red flashes stab into your vision;
on all sides,
Stellar
ships turn into burnt out hulls
spilling ice crystals and chunks of molten slag. Ahead, you see large guns all
along the space station blaze to life, firing solid rounds at the Invader ship.
The invisible shield of the Invader ship flashes as the bullets kiss its side,
making it look like a giant flashing egg blinking in and out of existence.
There is another brilliant flash of red laser fire and many of the
Stellar
guns are blasted from the side of the station.

They’re not going to last long
,
you think.
Have to hurry
.

Just as you wonder how you will get into the
station, another blast from the Invader ship rakes along the side of a ship
docking bay. Layers of steel plating are pulled away like torn cloth, glowing
hot at the edges, air and mist spray out like a rain of blood, then several
ships come crashing through the opening as well. In the panicky blur of your
tired, adrenaline-addled mind, you wonder,
Is this the safest way to get
into the station, or just the only way?
as
the
Invader fires again and again, blasting ships and port into a glowing-slag ruin
that fills your vision as you fly straight for it.

Your jet dies behind you. The ruined hulk of a ship
hovers by you, covering you in shadow as you enter the graveyard port. Another red
flash, then the lights within the port disappear, blinding you. You put your
feet in front of you moments before you slam into a wall. Your net of supplies
crashes into you silently, pushing you against the wall. You fight your way out
of the net, then let the gear and empty containers float away with the rest of
the garbage. You spend many minutes feeling about for a door, clinging
desperately to the cracks in the wall, unwilling to turn your helm light on for
fear of the Invader ship.

The ship moves on, firing at other parts of the
large space station. Finally you find a door, then a manual switch to open it.
You glide into a small foyer, hit a switch that turns on the lights, and see
grey walls. Gravity and air come into the chamber slowly. The weight of your
jetpack becomes unbearable. You struggle to your knees and throw your helmet
off. Then the inner door to the station opens.