Drones. As if he didn't have enough to deal with.
"Need someone to fight for you, Deth?" Byron yelled.
Deth shot another rocket that blew a hole in the floor. "Think of them as well-trained pets!"
The battle had already taken most of Byron's health bar. Even with the boost of his Strongman code, Byron couldn't take much more.
The floor shook from Deth's enormous boots pounding the floor as the exoskeleton charged forward. Byron moved to jump out of the way but surprised himself by flipping backwards. Time seemed to slow as he brought his chainguns up and sprayed bullets at the exoskeleton.
Think, Byron, think.
All boss characters had a weakness, just like the Hulk Troopers. He had to find it.
The drones continued buzzing him and throwing lasers at him, but he knew the first rule of boss battles was to ignore the other enemies and focus on the main boss.
He kept the triggers down on his chainguns, keeping the flood of bullets going. He spread the shots all over the exoskeleton, trying to find its weak spot. There had to be a weak spot.
When the chainguns clicked, his heart almost stopped.
The chainguns had run out of ammo..
Deth let out another bark of laughter. "You are such a pathetic fool. I can't believe it took me this long to stop you. Lady Necralia and her superstitions have gotten the best of us again."
He aimed and fired rockets at Byron again.
This time, Byron decided to use the drones and his speed to his advantage. He jumped to one side, behind one of the floating metal balls, timing it so the rocket hit the drone instead of him. He did that again and again, using the drones as shields.
Deth bared his teeth. "Stop it, you little scum! You are inferior! You will not best me!"
Byron fell into a crouch. Maybe it was his imagination, but Deth's voice seemed to have cracked.
Deth's eyes widened. "I am smarter and more ruthless than you or Lady Necralia. Once you are dead, I will rule the Galaxy, and the universe will know true genius!"
Byron could see something like panic in Deth's eyes, and it gave him an idea. One time, his mother had come down sick with pneumonia, and they couldn't afford to take her to the doctor. He had to take a week off from school, trying to care for her. When she began to scream and hallucinate giant spiders, she had the same look in her eyes.
He remembered what the general had said about the exoskeleton driving him insane. Maybe this Doctor Morg had been right to warn him, after all. If so, General Deth's weakness wasn't physical but mental.
He had to find what would tip Deth over the edge. Thinking back to everything he had seen and heard about Deth, he knew the general was extremely arrogant and egotistical. From his experience with bullies, Byron knew narcissistic people often hid a deep sense of low self-esteem and entitlement.
Byron leaped through the air as another rocket roared past his leg. It crashed into the last of the drones flying over him. That meant they had all been destroyed. Now he could concentrate on the general himself.
Byron still held the empty chainguns, so he threw one of them at Deth's metal left arm. Once again, he underestimated his strength. Instead of just knocking the arm like he had hoped, the metal punched into the arm like a needle. Deth pushed the arm out like he tried to shoot rockets out of it, but the arm just coughed clouds of smoke.
As Deth struggled, Byron yelled, "What's in it for you, Deth? All these people killed? Your ship destroyed? Why don't you just let me go?"
"Because you will destroy everything!" Deth called back. "You will destroy the Empire! I've spent years rising through the ranks of this military, and you can ruin all my hard work with a single stroke. Even if I survive, I'll be left with nothing!"
Deth swung his right arm to shoot another rocket that tore apart the floor under Byron. He leaped to freedom, but that gave him an idea.
Byron ran to where the wall had collapsed keeping his crew out of the fight. When Deth shot another rocket, it slammed into the pile of stone blocking the way, tearing it to pieces. He hoped that would let the others get through, but the dust settled with the wall still crumbled over.
He kept going, calling out, "Is that what you're afraid of, Deth? Becoming nothing? Because that's what you are to Lady Necralia. You think she would sacrifice everything to save you?"
At the same time, he threw the chaingun at Deth's other arm. The gun pierced the arm just as Deth tried to fire another rocket, but nothing but sparks coughed out.
He snarled, "I don't need rockets to kill you. And I don't expect loyalty from Her Majesty. I know she sent me to get you as a fool's errand. An excuse to get me out of the way. The other generals are probably arranging for my execution as we speak. But when I kill you, I'll be the true Outsider. I'll fulfill the prophecy and kill Lady Necralia, and seize the throne."
Byron could hear the strain in his voice, the loss of control. Deth was about to crack. He yelled, "You're never gonna beat Lady Necralia! You'll never get the throne away from her! You'll always be her bitch!"
"Be quiet!" Deth shrieked.
Something clicked in the metal arms of Deth's exoskeleton, and the rocket launchers popped off to crash onto the floor. In their place, long blades slid out onto the arms. Deth charged at Byron with them.
The exoskeleton moved faster than Byron thought it would, and Byron had to jump as the blades swung towards him. The swords slashed into the floor, and left deep cuts.
This couldn't keep going. Even without his rocket launchers, the exoskeleton made Deth too powerful. He had to get the general out of it.
Byron grabbed onto a piece of metal on the chest of the huge machine and held on.
General Deth snarled at him through the clear dome over his head. "I'll crush you, you little worm!"
"Like Necralia crushed your balls?" Byron punched the dome, hoping to break it.
His fist bounced off the clear substance. Whether it was glass or plastic, he couldn't tell, but it didn't even get a scratch.
Byron felt a draining through his body, starting at his head and moving down to his legs. The Strongarm code had worn off, leaving him weaker and weaker as it faded.
General Deth swung himself around, and Byron couldn't even hold on. His fingers slipped off of Deth's exoskeleton as the general whipped his swords through the air.
Byron felt something tear at his shoulder as his right arm exploded in pain. He crashed to the ground, screaming as he looked down and saw his right shoulder ended in a stump.
His right arm lay on the floor.
He bared his teeth to hold back another scream of agony and horror as he rolled onto his back. He had no weapons left, no NRG implant, and lost an arm.
General Deth stood over him, looking down at Byron through the dome of his suit. "Yes. This is the end for you, Jones."
Byron swallowed before gasping, "It's the end for you, too. You're a dead man, Deth. She's coming for you."
Deth looked up as if at something above him. "What? No, you can't do that."
Byron raised his eyes at him. "What?"
Deth whipped his head around, jerking back at nothing. Panic tightened his face into a grimace. "No, no. Your Majesty, I have always been-I have been loyal. You can't kill me."
The broken wall in the hangar rumbled before pieces of concrete and metal fell away. Blocks of stone flew as Silica's fists punched them aside while Chetaara's telekinesis lifted more of them out of the way.
Kiki ran out of the new opening in the wall to Byron. "Oh no, no, your arm is totally gone! We gotta reattach it, right? Can we put it in ice?"
Byron shook his head and looked up at Deth. The warlord's mechanical suit stumbled around the hangar, and he waved his arms like he swatted at flies.
"Get away!" Deth screamed. "I am the chosen one! I am the Outsider! The blood of the world shall freeze!"
"He's gone crazy," Byron gasped. "This is our chance. We have to get to his ship."
Byron wanted to kill Deth but he kn
ew survival was more important. Besides, the way the self-destruct was counting down, Deth would be dead without his cruiser, anyway.
Chetaara and Silica each took Byron by the shoulder and helped him to his feet. They made their way to Deth's starship, leaving Deth flailing and yelling in the hangar. They climbed the boarding ramp as the computer spoke over them.
"Self-destruct in three minutes."
The inside of the cruiser looked dark but spacious. Byron didn't bother to wait for the tour, but staggered to the front of the ship. The bridge had gold trim and marble surfaces, but looked a lot like the controls of the Icarus.
At that moment, Byron felt his legs go weak and collapsed into a chair. He had to be going into shock. He struggled to speak. "I-I can't fly. Scarlett was-the pilot."
Chetaara sat down at the pilot's chair and flipped switches. "I am not as good as she was-is, but I can fly us out of here."
With a rumble, the engines burned and the cruiser rose off its landing pad.
Byron looked out the window at General Deth, still swinging and howling at nothing. He wished he could torture the man like he had tortured Xana, but at least his end would come.
The speed pressed him against his seat as Deth's cruiser roared out of the Vanquish's auxiliary hangar.
They all watched on a screen of the cruiser's rear view as the battleship retreated away from them.
The next moment, the battleship became a blinding flash of light. Byron had to shield his eyes, but didn't want to look away. He wanted to watch as the Vanquish became a sun growing larger than all the other stars.
The cruiser began to tremble as the shockwave hit it. Kiki squeaked to herself. Everything in the ship rattled while a low rumble passed through but there was no sound in space, no loud thunder from the explosion.
When the shockwave faded and the light dimmed, nothing of the battleship remained.
Byron pointed to his torn shoulder. "Can a medpack fix this?"
Chetaara held out her hands and her healing powers flowed out to stop the flow of blood. "Medpacks can't replace missing limbs. We need to buy you a new arm."
Byron closed his eyes. "Great."
"Sorry you lost your Icarus, Byron." Kiki clasped her hands. "So are we gonna buy a new ship or what? Because I totally love shopping for absolutely anything, but especially for spaceships. I love that new spaceship smell."
"No. This is it." Byron patted the wall. "Welcome to the Icarus 2."
They all turned in place to look around at the ship
Kiki smiled. "We're keeping this?"
"Oh, yeah." Xana smirked. "I could get used to this."
"You bet. But I'm getting my ship back." Byron raised his eyes to his console. "And we're going to get the shield code back, no matter what."
He smiled at Kiki and Silica standing with Chetaara and Xana, and text popped up in front of him:
KIKI POMM HAS JOINED YOUR PARTY
SILICA HAS JOINED YOUR PARTY
MISSION COMPLETED: ESCAPE FROM DETH
+100,000 XP
+250,000 CREDITS
LEVEL UP! YOU ARE NOW A LEVEL 28 MARINE!
He barely had time to read the text before he passed out.
***
On some level, Deth knew when Byron and his whores ran past him, but couldn't stop to pay attention to them.
All around him, he saw the face of Lady Necralia. She had come from her fortress on Necros to attack him in the hangar bay, and become thousands of screaming heads swirling around him.
"You failed me, General," Lady Necralia howled. "You shall die at my hand!"
"Never!" Deth swung the metal blades of his exoskeleton, but they passed right through Necralia's face. The ghosts of her anger never seemed to stop. "I am the true heir to the throne! You are the one who shall die! I am the Outsider! I am the chosen one! I am a god!"
Somewhere, a woman's voice called out, "Detonation in five, four, three, two, one."
His eyes burst into a blinding light, along with a deafening thunder. Even through the thick walls of the suit, he felt searing pain from heat that roasted Deth alive. He slammed up against the inside of the exoskeleton as the universe spun around him. Red lights and warnings flashed all around his suit.
Then he lay still, cold, drifting in nothingness. He opened his eyes.
He floated in space inside the exoskeleton. The multiple heads of Lady Necralia had vanished, replaced by the dark void of the stars, and fragments of the Vanquish that drifted lazily in a cloud around him.
"I'm alive," he whispered.
The battleship had been destroyed.
"I'm alive," he yelled into the hollows of his suit.
He couldn't believe it. The exoskeleton had been strong enough to withstand the explosion.
He laughed as tears streamed down his cheeks. "Well done, Doctor Morg. If you were alive, I would be forever in your debt."
He shook his head. The ghosts of Lady Necralia had vanished and his mind felt clear again. The battlesuit had driven him mad, he knew that now. That and the prattling of Byron Jones. He wondered if Jones had escaped or died in the destruction. It didn't matter. He had to reach the Empire so he could be rescued, and quickly. He already felt his claustrophobia beginning to close the walls in on him. Once that was settled, he could worry about Jones again.
He drew an arm out of its sleeve to tap a switch for the communicator on his battlesuit. "This is General Morbin Deth to any available Imperial vessel. My battleship has been destroyed. I'm in a spacesuit adrift and in need of immediate rescue."
Silence greeted him.
He frowned down at the display inside the suit. Instead of showing lights and symbols, it showed completely black.
He felt a chill again, this time coming from inside his soul. "Computer, run diagnostics."
Nothing.
The suit's computer had been destroyed. Its radio had been destroyed. He couldn't even get out of the exoskeleton to fix it.
He looked through the transparent dome over his head, listening to his own breathing. Surely someone would come once they discovered the Vanquish hadn't reached Necros. A search party would come for him.
Except that he had ordered the ship's engineers not to broadcast an emergency signal. No one would know where the ship had dropped out of hyperspace and exploded. The search area would cross light-years of space.
Without the suit's recycler, he estimated he had only an hour's worth of oxygen left. An hour to tumble through space, trapped in a mechanical suit with barely enough room to turn his head, no way to escape, or call for help. He couldn't do anything except float and wait for someone to help him. Either that or wait for his air to run out and slowly suffocate to death.
Worse than all that, his claustrophobia made it feel like the thick metal walls crushed him with their very presence. He tried to force himself to breathe slower and not panic, but he started to hyperventilate and soon gasped for air. His skin crawled as he fought to get out of the metal coffin he had found himself in.
Just as he felt like he would burst, the voice of Lady Necralia began to whisper in his ears again. "You failed me, Deth. You will die. Die, Deth. Die alone among the stars--"
"No, no, no!" Deth screamed. "Get me out of here! Get me out of here!"
Deth knew no one would could hear him but he couldn't stop screaming. He thrashed and pounded his fists on every surface inside the exoskeleton, and kept on screaming until the last of his oxygen ran out.
Chapter 19
THOMAS WORKS sat in his office, and couldn't stop thinking about the woman who had come to the research center. Once again, he congratulated himself on forging the documents and waivers needed to give themselves legal cover for what they were doing, but felt like things had gone way too far.
He reached into his pocket for his smartphone. When he scrolled through the apps, he found Venus Chat, an app for people to chat with other users outside of the game. Of course, since almost no users left the game, the app was still in developme
nt.
He felt some amusement at how most of the company handled the lock-in issue. At every virtual testing cell, things went the same way. They would recruit some players, the players would get locked into the game, and the researchers would be told the recruitment would stop and they would get to work on trying to find a way to free them while maintaining the game.
The cell would believe they were the only ones testing the pods, and wouldn't know about the others. Only a select few knew that there were hundreds of testing facilities around the world, all dealing with the same problem. They would fiddle around with various solutions, not knowing that the lock-in problem was a feature, not a bug.
Works had a very good reason for making sure no one who tried the game ever left it.
Works opened the Venus Chat app. He only had one contact in it, one called simply the Orb.
On the screen of his phone, the shimmering sphere appeared to him. Somehow, it appeared completely smooth but also darkly malevolent.
"What is it, Works?" the Orb asked.
Works drummed his fingers on his desk. "A woman came by here. She somehow got past our security."
"Yes. Her name is Molly Jones."
For a moment, Works felt confused. He didn't know how the Orb knew something even his people hadn't figured out, but it wasn't the first time. It seemed like the Orb was almost omnipotent. "Yes, sir. She mentioned someone named Byron Jones."
"Yes, the Outsider."
Works blinked. "The Outsider? I thought that was some fairy tale Accolade put in the game."
"No, it is real, and Jones is the key. Accolade introduced the Outsider as a Trojan horse. As we speak, he is taking actions that will shut down the game permanently."
Works sighed. "So what do we do?"
"It's obvious. Kill Byron Jones."
Works glanced at the door of his office before leaning closer to his phone. "That's not going to be easy. It was hard enough jacking Accolade into the game without anyone noticing. I can't just pull the plug on someone else without being noticed."
Death's Revenge: A LitRPG Sci-Fi Adventure (Venus Online 5) Page 16