Heavy Metal Thunder (51 page)

“We kin have a rematch tomorrow,” says Buford,
hovering over his beaten foes.

Turn to section
143
.

You blast at the advancing robot but
it’s
head only wobbles about like a jack-in-the-box caught
in a tornado. You yelp and flail your arms about as you barely move out of the
robot’s way before it plows into a pile of food supplies. The robot swings
about, then drives toward you again.

You will have to take it out the old fashioned way.

Be sure to erase the ammunition that you used,
then
turn to section
228
.

You draw her near you so that her belly presses up
against yours, then mash your lips against hers, hard, until her body bends
backwards. She seems to give in, and so you force your tongue into her mouth,
then
twirl your tongue around against her own, as if you
were swinging a chain at a scared puppy.

Then she makes a groan of protest and pulls away.
“Stop,” she says. “This is...”

“Come on, babe,” you say. “This is totally ill.”

“No, it’s not ill,” she says, then wiggles her way
out of your arms. “In fact, it’s kind of weird. I thought you were... thought
you were different.”

Resentful of the way she has toyed with you, you
say, “Well if you thought I was gay, you’re wrong. When you’re ready for a real
man -”

“Okay, I get it,” she says, seeming bored, as if
she’s heard such tough talk before. She turns to leave all in a huff. You watch
her ass hopping left and right as she goes.

But overall, you’re not exactly sure what just
happened.

Turn to section
571
.

You bounce lightly through the icy field of white
flowers. Your helm light casts long shadows among the frozen stalks. One of the
thick blossoms breaks off at your touch - and you realize that the flowers are
made of meat. The Invaders must have developed these meat flowers to grow on
the hide of this creature in the cold of space to help feed their soldiers.

You still have a long way to go in your journey, and
your supplies are limited. If you want to gather up the
Pork Chop Flowers
(bulk 0 while in space)
, you can put them in your net with the rest of your
gear before you return to your investigation of the glowing blue circle.

You hover over the blue. Its periphery is a bundled
mass of sparkling veins. Its center is a glowing blue organ that pumps slowly,
sending liquid nutrients throughout the flesh of the beast.

“So this is the heart,” you growl. “Looks like the
Invaders are going to be short one space-pet pretty soon.” Your pulse races
with fiendish delight, for you are about to kill something.

If you have a gun and want to shoot the heart of the
beast, turn to section
369
.

If you have a hand-to-hand weapon and want to use
it, turn to section
194
.

If you have no weapons, or choose not to use them,
you can stomp the thing by turning to section
46
.

You maneuver about until you are one member of a
long line of spearmen with lances held outwards. You race toward the cluster of
Invaders charging toward your ship. Your pulse hisses in your skull as you draw
nearer, nearer. For an instant you see the horns of the monsters, their black
swords and axes, you level your spear, then -

Both groups collide. Your spear jars in your hand as
you skewer one Invader through his armpit. You rotate one another rapidly,
then
the Invader’s weapon flies from his hands. You blast
your jets and force the point of your spear through his back, impaling his
entire torso.

You gain
2 XP
for killing the Invader. You
pull your spear back, then jam your boot into the corpse and push it from your
weapon.

All around you, it seems the enemy’s charge and the
defense against it have
dissolved into an all-out melee. An
Invader armed with a mace flies toward you. It seems that he is flying slowly,
and so you prepare to charge.

If you are skilled in
Sixth
Sense
,
turn to section
325
.

If you do not have this skill, turn to section
116
.

As bullets crash all around you and your
comrades
scream in your ears, your mind catches on the fact
that there are radiation suits in the closet. The shield generating technology
used by the Invaders and the human Black Lance Legion does not rely on nuclear
energy - but the engines that drive the ships do. In case of a meltdown or any
other accident, such equipment has to be kept on hand to deal with the problem.

“Commander Uther!” you shout.
“Uther!
Sir, listen to me!”

“What?!” says Uther, ducking as a great chunk of the
doorway explodes, peppering you all.

“
There’s
rad-suits in here!
That means the heat signature we’re following is coming from the engine room,
not the shield generator!”

The Commander looks back and forth,
then
says, “Damn, you’re right. Even if we did manage to
blast through these guys, the most we could accomplish is stalling the Invaders
in space. They’d still be able to blast our ship if its shields get knocked
out! Fall back!
Everyone fall back!
”

Marcus pulls several grenades from his belt. “Get
ready to run like hell,” he growls.

You gain
2 XP
for your astute observation.

Turn to section
112
.

You draw your knife and, as the shrieking man swings
his rifle, you raise your free wrist to absorb the blow. You step in and jam
the knife into his gut. He drops the rifle as your free hand falls limp, numb
with pain. Suddenly the man bites your neck and shoulder, growling like an
animal. You step into him, forcing him against a wall,
then
jam the blade in his gut again and again. Eventually he falls, white in the
face and spewing blood and dying for no good reason.

You have lost
2 Blood
in the fight. If
your
Blood score has dropped to zero or less, then the man
has torn a vital artery in your neck, and you join him in death.

If you have survived, turn to section
530
.

The gun jerks in your hand and a cloud of dust
sprays up around the sniper. He disappears in the cloud. As you prepare for
another shot, the cloud drifts away and you see the sniper scrambling for cover
behind a stony rise.

You curse and draw back for cover. Paranoid that the
sniper is calling in your position to his spotter, you turn and see the
gladius
-wielding fighter flying toward you. In the light of
his jetpack flare you see his black armor, his great curved horns. You freeze,
staring into the shadow that is the enemy from another world, wondering what he
thinks, wondering if his thoughts are even comprehensible. He blasts toward you
at high speed and you must act quickly.

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

If you want to try to shoot him, turn to section
421
.

If you want to draw a hand-to-hand weapon to fight
this thing, turn to section
159
.

“
Nothin’s
wrong, baby,”
you say. “Mister Wiggles has got everything under control.”

She makes an elaborate show of seeming scared - most
likely, so that you will feel “in control” - by writhing beside you in a
wiggly, jiggling dance of fear. “It’s just that everything’s so different now,”
she says. “I always heard people talking about the Invader, but I thought it
would never happen to me.” She suddenly grabs your arm and throws herself
against your body, shivering against you. Part of you is disgusted, because
rationally you know that she is not twelve years old. Another part of you
immediately flares up when she pushes herself against you.

“And I can tell,”
she
says,
“that you’re a part of some weird cult that’s fighting those alien monsters.
You seem... God, you seem like they’ve done something terrible to you. Done
something terrible to your mind! So that people like me...” she turns her face
up to you, eyes half-shut like she’s going to take a nap. But it would be an
erotic nap, because her lips are moist, hot,
red
.
“So that people like me could stay asleep, living easy lives.”

You grab her arms suddenly and she lets out a hot,
sexy squeak. Her breasts shake for a moment,
then
the
momentum dies around her nipples, pressed up against her dress.

If your
Charisma
is 5 or more, turn to
section
127
.

If your
Charisma
is not so high, but your
Will
is 4 or more, and you want to use it, turn to section
460
.

Otherwise, turn to section
16
.

More tentacles writhe up from below and lick your boots
and knees before they wrap around like steel manacles. The mouth opens wide
before you, ready to clamp down on your neck. You prime your jetpack and get
ready for the ride of your life, fully aware that it may be a short ride.

You must now compute a number that will determine
the outcome of your maneuver. This number is your
Dexterity
stat plus your
Will
stat. If you have the
Jetpack Skill
,
add 4 to this number.

If your number is 8 or less, turn to section
448
.

If your number is 9 or more, turn to section
26
.

You slam your weapon onto one of the drills. It
knocks your hand away, jolting it and numbing your shoulder. Cursing, you raise
yourself before the drills can grind you up. Then you brace yourself again -
and bash one of the drills over and over again, screaming a
battlecry
.
To your satisfaction, the drill bit keels over, spinning and shrieking, and
tears another drill from its base. The two fall into the beast’s mouth. You
lower yourself quickly, grasping onto the exposed rim, and knock the drills off
and into the gaping mouth. With the last drill you go hog-wild, knocking it
over the side and into the vacuum, but your weapon also falls to pieces - be
sure to
erase it from your inventory.

The deconstructor stops, realizing it is damaged and
needs repair. You turn to the other and see the guard’s gun fall into its
drills. You glance up to the guard; gritting his teeth, he yanks the belt of grenades
from his chest and drops the whole thing into the other deconstructor. You
brace yourself as its innards are rocked by a series of explosions. It falls
sideways, crashing into your deconstructor. You yank wildly on the grappling
harness and it pulls you away as the two machines slide back toward the vacuum,
shrieking as their metal sides bend and crush into one another, then nearly
seal up the breached hallway. You and the guard fall to the
floor,
newly reoriented. Exhausted, you both crawl into another hallway.

You lose
2 Blood
in the battle. You gain
3
XP
for successfully destroying the deconstructors. Be sure to erase the
weapon that you lost.

Turn to section
126
.

You drink only thin trickles of water. You move as
little as possible, for your oxygen supply disappears at an alarming rate. Your
fuel dwindles down to what you have only in your jetpack.

But the void: That is unending.
Plenty
of space there for a corpse to lie forever.

If you are skilled in
Navigation
, turn to
section
478
.

If you do not have this skill, turn to section
439
.

Someone approaches and you spring to alertness. You
see Zelda before you, her dress ruffled, her hair slightly unkempt, but no less
beautiful than ever. “What are you up to?” she says.

“Meditating,” you say.

“You want to sit with me a while?
Alone,
just us?”
She smiles, and her red lips quiver lightly against her pale
skin.

If you agree to, turn to section
280
.

If you refuse, turn to section
536
.

“Marcus!” you shout. “Little help over here!”

Marcus nails two more alien fighters who fall on a
pile of the dead. Three come to fill their place and Marcus empties the rest of
his clip as they pull back for cover. As he reloads with superhuman speed, he
shouts, “What is it?!”