Death's Revenge: A LitRPG Sci-Fi Adventure (Venus Online 5)

by Jeremy Zenith

  Deth's leather gloves creaked as he tightened them into fists. "Oh, how I wish I could be there to finish you off myself. I would gladly give my fame and fortune to have my hands around your neck."

  Byron jerked his chin at Deth, trying to make himself look tougher. "So why don't you? Come on down here and face me, man to man. It's just about me and you, so let the others go so we can settle this. Leave the rest of them out of it."

  Deth chuckled. "Oh, that would be delightful, but I have no illusions about you, dear boy. I'm not going to give you a chance to escape this time. No, as much as I wish I could face you myself, I'm not about to waste this opportunity for some false bravado."

  Deth's glowing arm thrust out to point at Byron. "Men, shoot him. Right now."

  The Death Troopers raised their weapons in a chorus of clicks, turning their rifles onto Byron and the other prisoners.

  "Killing me won't stop the resistance," Byron blurted.

  He smirked. "No, but it might slow it down."

  Byron took a deep breath. He didn't regret dying now, knowing he had done so much damage to the Empire. He had given it his best shot, but the escape came to its end.

  The female Death Trooper raised a gloved hand.

  All the Death Troopers shrieked as they dropped their weapons at once. Their bodies spasmed and jerked before falling forward.

  The floor shuddered as the soldiers hit the ground and lay still.

  Only the female Death Trooper remained standing, glaring at Byron.

  The hologram of General Deth spun around before he burst out laughing again. "Oh, lieutenant general, are you really doing what I think you're doing? Well, I hope you enjoy this moment, because I will peel your--"

  The female trooper walked over to the holographic projector, picked it up, and pressed a button. "Oh, shut the fuck up."

  General Deth's hologram vanished into a wisp of smoke.

  The female trooper dropped the rod and faced Byron. "My name is Lieutenant General Magott. I triggered the self-destruct in those soldiers' armor. I will help you escape on the condition that you take me with you. Do we have a deal?"

  Byron looked at the others who just stared back at him in shock. "Wh-What?"

  Magott rolled her eyes. "We don't have much time. They'll be sending reinforcements soon. So I'll assume we have a deal. Quickly, this way."

  She began to run down the corridor, stepping over the corpses of the fallen soldiers.

  Some of the soldiers had begun to fade already, but Byron didn't bother to gather up their loot. He just grabbed one of the rifles, helped Xin back onto her feet, and followed Magott. The other prisoners picked up their own rifles and Chetaara picked up some medpacks left behind before following.

  As they ran, Byron called out, "Why are you helping us?"

  Magott looked over her shoulder as she turned a corner down an identical hallway. "I wish I could say it was for some higher cause but it's a simple act of self-preservation. General Deth is obsessed with killing you and I've seen first-hand that none of us is safe. He'll sacrifice all of us including me to kill you. He's even planning to destroy this ship if you can't be stopped by the time we get to Necros, and that gives us less than two hours. On the other hand, I've watched you and you're a survivor and an honorable man who'll keep his word. I'd rather take my chances with you."

  She held up her hand to stop the others before poking her head around a corner. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "We need weapons and supplies. There's an armory this way. You stay here while I get us in."

  Byron nodded to the others who held back while Magott walked around the corner.

  He couldn't see her, but her voice echoed down the hallway. "At ease, men. I have orders to inspect the armory."

  As she continued to talk to some of the soldiers, Silica growled, "We can't trust her."

  Kiki lit up in a smile. "Aw, come on, Silica. Why not? She seems awesome and badass, and she just fried like twenty of her own guys to save us."

  "Exactly. If she can betray her own people so easily, she will no doubt turn on us."

  Chetaara whispered, "I agree with the rocky one. She cannot be trusted."

  Scarlett smirked. "Hey, anyone who fucks up the Empire is a friend of mine."

  Their conversation cut short as the crackle of laser fire came around the corner.

  Byron leaned around the corner to see Lieutenant General Magott standing in front of a thick vault door. In her hand, a pistol smoked as two dead Death Troopers lay at her feet.

  Magott gestured with the pistol in circles. "They couldn't be reasoned with. All right, come on. We don't have much time."

  She swiped a keycard in the slot next to the armory door. The door swung open, rumbling on thick hinges, to open a vault with rows of shelves. Each shelf held a different form of weapon, enough to make Byron's jaw drop.

  "Holy fucking shit," Scarlett whispered.

  Kiki squealed while bouncing up and down. "Wow, this is so totally awesome. I've never this many guns in one place before."

  Chetaara leaned towards it. "Indeed, it is no wonder the Empire is so well-armed wherever they travel."

  Magott jerked her chin at it while folding her arms. "This is only one of thirty armories aboard the ship. We triggered a signal when we opened it, so I estimate we have about three minutes before reinforcements get here."

  Byron rushed into the armory along with the others. He swept the room with his eyes, and called out, "Okay, everybody grab a pistol, a shotgun, and as many magazines as you can carry. Any room left, try to grab a couple of grenades."

  They all began stuffing their pockets and filling their arms with weapons.

  He felt like a kid in a candy shop, grabbing whatever he could get his hands on and carry safely. He had felt so helpless in the prison cell that this felt like he had power again. Byron slung a rifle over his shoulder so he could grab ten magazines. That's all his jumpsuit could hold. He jammed a semi-automatic laser gun into his holster, and picked up a shotgun to hold in his hands. He figured the shotgun would be most useful in the narrow halls of the ship, while the rifle would be his backup weapon with the pistol for targeted shots. He also grabbed some rope, just because he could.

  For a moment, the sheer weight of all the weapons made him stagger. If it weren't for his high stats, he might not have been able to carry it all. He remembered his days playing first person shooters where he carried a dozen weapons with ammo to match. Not quite the same.

  While Silica and Xin followed his lead, the shorter Xana and Misty seemed to be having a hard time with it.

  Xana picked up the pistol and put the rifle and shotgun back down. "Um, I need to travel light. I can't turn invisible while I carry all this."

  "Invisible," Xin snarled. "Is that another of your mutations? Or did you mutilate yourself?"

  Xana whipped around to glare at her. "I did this to myself when I was ten years old, and I'm proud of it. How many ten-year-olds do you know who can edit their own genes to restore latent abilities?"

  Xin's upper lip curled. "No ten-year-old Chamella I know would turn themselves into an abomination like you."

  Xana reached for her collar.

  Byron held out his shotgun to block the two of them. "Hey, hey, hey. Knock it off. Xana, calm down. Xin, if you can't keep your obnoxious comments to yourself, you can fend for yourself while we escape the ship."

  Xin shot Xana another sneer, but said nothing.

  Magott took a grenade and inserted it into a slot on her armor. "So do you have a plan or are you just running scared?"

  Byron turned towards her. "We have a plan. My ship is still in the hangar bay, right?"

  "Yes, they can't seem to get through the force fields and the security system has yet to be cracked."

  Xana smirked. "Told you."

  "Then that's where we're headed." Byron picked up a grenade. "If you can help, Magott, you can come along."

  Magott stepped closer to him. "I can help you. I can guide you to your s
hip."

  Silica crossed her arms. "We'll need more than that. How do we know you won't just betray us?"

  "I'm sure you're aware that the entry code for Necros is on the ship. I can help get you to the computer core to retrieve it. Assuming you can access the ship's computer system, of course."

  Xana flashed another smile. "I can."

  NEW OBJECTIVE: BREACH COMPUTER CORE

  REWARDS: 5,800 XP, 8,000 CREDITS

  Kiki whipped her head around as her antennae bounced. "Hey, guys and gals, sorry to interrupt, but I'm picking up some major Imperial signals headed this way."

  "Reinforcements are coming." Magott drew her pistol again.

  Xin swung her shotgun up and pumped it. "Can you self-destruct the soldiers again?"

  Magott snapped a new magazine into her pistol. "No, I tried, but they've disabled my access. Even my keycard no longer works."

  Scarlett grinned while spinning her pistol on her finger. "Then we have to shut 'em down the old-fashioned way."

  Byron walked towards the exit to the armory. He could hear the thump of boots on the polished hallway floors, growing closer. He tried to think of the strategy he had used in video games. "Okay, save your rifle ammo. It's close quarters, so we'll use shotguns. Four of us including me and Magott on the left side, four with Silica and Xin on the right."

  "And watch your shots," Xin added. "There's live ammo in here."

  The prisoners all nodded, tightening their grip on their weapons. They all seemed to feel the same sense that the roles had been reversed. Now they had the weapons they needed to hold back the Imperial forces. The army aboard the ship still had them outnumbered, but the tides were turning in their favor.

  Yet Byron reminded himself that he had lost over half the prisoners just getting here. That wasn't something to be proud of. He had to save every life from then on.

  Byron took a deep breath as he knelt to face the entrance of the armory. The soldiers would have to come through the door, and they would face a group armed with enough weapons to kill them a dozen times over. He kept his eyes focused on the doorway, keeping his finger on the trigger of his shotgun, ready to fire whenever a head poked its way in.

  Something did come in, but it wasn't a head.

  Two grenades bounced into the armory. One rolled to Byron's feet, the other at Xin's.

  Of course. The Death Troopers didn't need to come in if they could make the prisoners come out.

  "Everybody, go," Byron yelled.

  Silica and Byron charged out of the armory, firing shotgun blasts. They faced ten soldiers, five kneeling in formation and five standing. The soldiers at the front of the line fell back as a cluster of bullets slammed into them. The soldiers beyond them huddled behind boxes as shields so they could fire their rifles down the hallway.

  Before they could exchange fire, the armory blew up.

  The explosion hit Byron and threw him across the hallway. Before he even hit the wall, more concussions hit him, just before everything went silent.

  He opened his eyes, and gasped as pain oozed through every muscle in his body. He lay on his side with something hot pressing down on him. It turned out to be the door of the armory, which had been torn off and thrown onto him.

  He winced as he pressed his hands against the hot metal, managed to push off the door, and sat up.

  Through thick clouds of smoke, he could see the armory had vanished, leaving a canyon with twisted metal edges in its place. The grenades had triggered a chain reaction, setting off the other grenades and magazines and whatever else could blow up.

  The detonation had hurled Death Troopers and prisoners alike. Some armored bodies lay on chunks of metal, and others just vanished, leaving only five Imperial soldiers left. A small group of the survivors took shots at each other across the hole between them. It seemed eerily silent until Byron realized the blast had blown out his ears.

  The rattle of gunfire began to creep back into his hearing, along with a voice screaming for help. He focused through the smoke and saw a pair of hands clinging to the edge of the artificial canyon.

  Byron forced his aching body to rise, and charged across to where Misty clung to the edge of the hole, screaming. Below her, the blast had punched through three floors, leaving her hanging over an abyss.

  "Help me!" she yelled as her legs kicked.

  A surge of panic hit him as he realized she was the only real player left in his group. He felt a connection to her as a real woman and didn't want to lose her, and lose someone in the real world.

  Byron grabbed Misty by the wrists and pulled. She thrashed but braced her feet on the edge and he pulled her up.

  Her arms tightened around his neck and squeezed while she whispered, "Thank you."

  "No problem." Byron rose up. "Let's move."

  Magott pushed off a block of metal lying on her leg, and staggered to her feet. "This way!"

  She headed across the remains of the corridor, stepping around the jagged edge, to where Silica and Xin knelt and fired shotgun blasts at the surviving Death Troopers. Byron snatched up his shotgun where he had dropped it and fired rounds. One of the Death Troopers flew back with metal spraying from the armor on his chest.

  +250 XP

  One good thing about the blast seemed to be evening the odds. All the prisoners had survived while the numbers of the Death Troopers had been reduced to five, giving them the advantage.

  The prisoners helped each other up and charged down the hallway, firing shotguns and ducking behind boxes. The Death Troopers fell back, firing their rifles as they retreated. One shot hit Byron's chest, and he grunted as it burned through, but he managed to keep shooting, taking down the soldier who hit him.

  Just as Byron started feeling better about their odds, more Death Troopers came around a corner, firing back. The laser beams cut through the air, pounding the prisoners and everything around them.

  Misty crouched as she held out her hands. "I can make a force field."

  "Force field," Xin snarled. "Why didn't you use that earlier?"

  "It has a twenty-four hour cooldown. I was savin' my NRG implant so I could use my healing code, but I can use it now if you want."

  Byron shook his head. "Save it. We might need it later. Let's just push through."

  They came down the hallway to an open area with white consoles lined up in the center of the room. Byron wasn't sure what the point of the place was, but it had Death Troopers huddled behind every corner.

  "Time to return the fucking favor," Scarlett yelled and threw a grenade.

  The Death Troopers scrambled out of the way before it exploded. The blast shattered one of the consoles, spraying glass and metal across the room. Most of the Death Troopers managed to get out of range, but one landed with his arms and legs twisted in unnatural angles.

  Byron popped out the magazine for his shotgun, yanked out another clip from his belt, and slammed it home. Even though they had taken some bad hits, they still could keep going. Adrenaline pulsed through him, making him feel stronger and faster.

  A Death Trooper charged at him, spraying fire. Byron shot the soldier in the chest and again in the head, sending him crashing to the ground.

  "Which way?" Xin yelled.

  Magott held up her tablet with a schematic glowing on it. "This way! Down this path and to the left. That's where the computer core is, and then it's just a straight shot to the hangar bay!"

  As she spoke, the Death Troopers began backing out of the room. They ducked out of the doorway, rifles blazing, until the prisoners remained alone.

  Scarlett swept the room with her glowing blue eyes. "I don't like the look of this shit."

  Magott broke into a run. "The blast doors!"

  Before she could even get more than a few steps, huge metal doors slid down from the ceiling. They slammed into place, blocking all the exits.

  "Son of a bitch!" Magott lowered her shotgun while turning in place. "They've locked down the ship."

  Silica ran her gray fin
gers over the surface of one of the doors. "We might be able to break through this with a few grenades."

  Magott shook her head while pulling out a data tablet. "No, this isn't just one door. With the blast protocol, these doors lock down every area in the Vanquish. Beyond this door is another and another. Dozens of them between us and your ship. We're trapped."

  Chapter 11

  GENERAL DETH charged into the ship's science section, ignoring the protests of the Imperial scientists who tried to block his path. He hated going into the laboratories of Doctor Morg, and it didn't take long to remind him why.

  Deth tried not to gag at the foul air that stank of rotting meat and putrid chemicals. Various creatures and humanoid lifeforms lay on tables with technicians either cutting off or bolting on parts of their bodies. Along the wall, cages and tanks held some of Morg's more unruly creations. Calling it a science section would be generous. More like a slaughterhouse.

  Morg himself hunched over a table with a mammoth Necrosi soldier strapped onto it. The mad scientist looked more machine than living thing with his limbs and head mostly replaced with cybernetic implants from his experiments. Morg had an obsession with perfecting the Necrosi race with questionable ideas about the end result.

  Morg put down strange tools and turned towards the general. His mechanical face wrinkled into a scowl. "Deth, why are all the bulkheads locked down? And you know you're not welcome here. This is my private laboratory."

  Deth braced his hands on his hips. "The answer to both is this is my ship, doctor, and don't you forget it. I'll do whatever I like and go wherever I like."

  Morg's thin lips curled up in a humorless smile. "You may go where you wish, but I'm sure you're aware there are dangerous areas aboard this battleship. When you enter here without the proper safety equipment and clearance, I can't guarantee your safety."

  Deth tilted his head to one side. "Oh, this is amusing. Are you threatening me?"