Heavy Metal Thunder (60 page)

“Right on!” you say.
“
Wha
-a-
atever
, bro.”
You
search the bodies of the dead and find the following gear.

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

3 Shotgun Shells (bulk 1)

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

4 Handgun bullets (bulk 1)

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

You nearly lose your mind messing with the blasted
computer system. Nearly half an hour goes by and a solid headache sets in. In
the time that passes you must eat
1 Food
or lose
1 Blood
from
hunger. (If your Blood drops to zero then your head crashes into the keyboard
and the last thing you hear is the computer beeping, shrill and annoying.)
Eventually, near tears, you yell for the manager.

“What
d’you
want!” he
screams as he enters.

“
Wanna
see... where ships
are...” you say, then slam your fist into the keyboard in a vain attempt to hide
your frustration.

“Here,” he says condescendingly, bringing up a
system of logs. “Call me if you need your diaper changed or something,
sir
,”
he mutters as he stomps out of the room.

The monitor displays 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.

Turn to section
152
.

You hold the gun sideways, like you’ve seen on
television,
and blast wildly, backing away as the screaming
man rushes toward you. You whirl away as the man swings his rifle about, then
nearly drop your gun and juggle it in the air. You don’t have any time to draw
another weapon as the man is nearly upon you - you must fight him with your
bare hands.

Be sure to erase the amount of bullets you have
used.

Turn to section
49
.

You fake left then break right. The coil whips
around. You leap and roll. The crackling end of the thing sears the wall
nearby: Gain
1 XP.

You jog down the hall. You see a closed door to your
right. Behind you, the mist is far away but is advancing rapidly.

If you want to duck into the other room, either to
hide or just to take a peek, turn to section
90
.

If you want to keep moving ahead, turn to section
430
.

You pop open the dock door control panel and,
bracing
yourself,
manually turn the crank to open it.
As soon as the door cracks open, air rushes from the hallway and into the void.
You turn the crank as fast as you can while holding onto the panel itself. As
your supplies, so wonderfully organized, fly toward the door, you release your
grip and are whipped out and into
he
void. You see
heavy fuel canisters and steel water jugs slam into the opening, sealing it.
You fly out at tremendous speed,
then
kick on your
jetpack. You feel the reassuring surge at your back, the overwhelming sense of
freedom, as you maneuver about the dock. You look around: It is a ghost yard of
wasted hulls, bent steel, twisted girders,
shredded
space suits. Even dead men float about, icy conglomerations of purple and red.

A giant supply cabinet floats by. If you have made a
note that your space suit is damaged, then you lose
1 Blood
to the
terrible sucking cold of the vacuum. (If the text has not specifically said so,
then you may assume that your Black Lance Legion suit has not been damaged
during your battles.) In the floating cabinet you find a large jar of Sticky
Fix, which is good for spraying on damaged suits to seal them up against the
void. If your suit is damaged, you can spray on some of the stuff and erase the
note that your suit is damaged. In either case, you may clip the
Sticky Fix
(Suit Repair, bulk 2)
to your belt. There is enough for
3 doses
, not
counting the dose you may have just used.

Also inside the supply cabinet, you find an item
called a Wilderness Void Tent. This handy item is folded up now, but when
opened, it forms into a giant hollow ball that you can easily fit into. Its
woven steel-fiber frame can keep the vacuum out, so you will be able to eat
your meals and drink water while inside. You do not have to worry about keeping
it on your person, as you would the Sticky Fix; you toss the item near the dock
door so that you can keep it with the rest of your supplies.

You click your teeth and turn your helm computer on.
The heads-up display reads

OXYGEN:
FULL

JETPACK
FUEL: FULL

HELM
BATTERY: NEAR FULL

That’s the stuff, baby
,
you think as you fly about the dock. Then, you find the last item that you will
need: A giant fireproof net to keep your supplies in. You grab the thing as you
fly by it, open it up, and hold it near the hallway door. You steady it as best
you can in space,
then
gently fly to the door control
panel. You manually crank the thing open all the way and your supplies come
flying out, crashing into the net all helter
skelter
-like.
You fly about and gather the loose items, tossing them in the net. You mind is
on fire, white-hot, burning with the insane intent of the thing you
are
about to attempt, the journey you have worked so hard
just to begin.

As the full net pushes out of the ruined dock and
into space, you look ahead. You see dozens of small deconstructor robots
walking along the ceiling, pincers biting silently. They ignore you, filing
past you and filling the open hall doorway. You turn about and leave them
behind.

Turn to section
259
.

You float through the void, supplies dwindling,
sanity
questionable. “Some reason,” you gasp. “Some reason
to exist.” You drift into sleep.

Why am I even here?

You dream. You are flying through a battlefield.
Points of light flash all around: allies, enemies.
Screaming
in your ear, commands and death-screams on the radio.
You have a sword
in your hand, awkward, unwieldy, something flies by you and, terrified, the
weapon flies from your hand.
That can’t be me
, you think.
That coward
can’t be me
.

Then you see another before you.
A
human, dark-suited like yourself.
His jet flares, there is an impact,
jarring - the infantryman is in your face, you cannot make out his features but
he is screaming at you, he hates you, you panic. You put your hands around the
neck-guard of his
suit,
you push and pull against him,
desperate to be free of this madman. He raises a mace, draws back. You yank his
neck-guard to no avail. The mace crashes into your helmet, tossing your brain
on either side of your skull.

You wake with a start, your right hand clutching
reflexively. Clutching at...? You know in that instant that a human tried to
kill you. A human from the ship you are trying to save.

“
Revenge
,” you growl. “Reason enough to
survive.”

Your journey through the darkness continues. You
feel out the calculus of your survival: You have traveled perhaps half the
distance to the next space station, but have gone through more than
three-quarters of your supplies. Things can only get worse.

Then, something ludicrous happens. Either
that,
or you truly have gone insane.

Turn to section
547
.

“Escape?” says the laborer, rolling the idea about
in his guts. “Could all of life’s problems... really just disappear... like
that?”

“The problems won’t disappear,” you say, “but as
long as you’re alive, you have a chance to make your life better than before.”

You can see that the man wants to believe you, but
his urge toward death is also very strong.

If your
Charisma
is 5 or more, turn to
section
240
.

If your
Charisma
is 4 or less, turn to
section
440
.

You follow
Sybel’s
directions until he stops. Ahead, a narrow hallway leads off to the right.
Further ahead the hall ends in a branch that goes off to the right and the
left.

Everyone clusters around Sybel, and he whispers,
“We’re close to something, there’s a big heat signature to the left.”

“They’re going to have guards at that intersection,”
Uther whispers so faintly that you can barely hear him. “Not much cover in this
hallway, either. I want someone to sneak up that little hall on the right and
see if you can maneuver around and hit whatever they’ve got up there from the
side, while the rest of us hit ’
em
head-on.”

If you are trained in
Stealth
and want to
volunteer for the sneaky flank operation, turn to section
337
.

If you do not have this skill, or do not want to
volunteer, turn to section
81
.

“Thank you, sir!” says the man, panting heavily.
“You’re too kind! My name’s Simeon.”

“Whatever dude,” you say, scanning the horizon for
possible dangers. “Just chill and don’t break anything, and if someone else
breaks something, then fix it.”

Make a note that
Simeon
the
Mechanic
is with you.

Turn to section
77
.

The manager raises the rifle and points it at you,
his tear-streaked face purple with rage. You panic for a split-second as you
fumble for your jetpack controls. You see the window
spiderweb
,
then
feel an incredible impact as you are knocked
back. There is searing pain in your arm, shoulder, torso, as your suit is torn
open and hellish cold bites into you. You crash into the floor of the dock and
slide backwards.

The manager’s body flies forward, drawn out by the
suck of the void. He careens through the heavy window and it shatters,
shredding his body to a thousand glistening pieces that freeze in the shape of
an unreal monster, a beast of icy red coils and shards of crystalline blood, a
horrible thing that is an apt image of the monster this man kept inside his
heart.

You lose
3 Blood
from the terrible trauma. If
you survive, but did not take any
Sticky
Fix
with you, then you
lose a further
1 Blood
as you fly back to the floating supply cabinet to
use some of the Fix. If you already have this item on you, you must use one
dose of it now to prevent further Blood loss from the cold of the airless void.
As you repair your suit and regain some warmth in your limbs, you realize that
the bullet did not hit you at all, but only tore through your suit. The manager
was no marksman. Now, the only thing he will be managing is his own grave.

You gain
2 XP
for outliving the manager. You
see dozens of deconstructors file into the open hall doorway. You turn about
and leave them.

Turn to section
259
.

The blade flashes forward - then skids along the
deconstructor’s face, dancing and scraping up its paint-job. The thing clamps
down onto your wrist with its pincers. You shriek in terror, but the cry is cut
short as the tentacle of the other bashes into the back of your head. You jerk
your hand upward, pulling the thing in the air as you shout, “St-stop hurting
me!” and slam one into the other. Despite the pain in your wrist, you lift the
tenacious monster
again,
bring it crashing down into
the other. They swing their tentacles about, desperate to clear one another’s
proximity, until one is bashed into pieces by the other. You manage to free
your wrist,
then
fall on top of the other, grinding
your knife into its mouth, then up through its head.