Death Drop

by Sean Allen

  Wuuuuuuuuurrrrr—KABOOM! KABOOM!

  The explosion of the Hellion hurled Bertie almost forty feet. Luckily his table took the brunt of the blast. The only injuries Dr. Blink and Otto suffered were sizable bruises they received after they were thrown from the medical machine as he flipped through the air. Malo was far enough behind that he wasn’t hit by anything but the force of the blast, which sent him soaring backward and landed him inches from a smoking pile of scrap with sharp spines of metal jutting from its center.

  Bertie landed table-side down on the hard cavern floor. His treads moved horizontally out from his top, momentarily doubling his length. Once cleared of the end of his table, his treads dropped slightly until they touched the ground and his table top moved in a smooth one hundred and eighty degree arc until it once again rested on top of his treads for an instant before elevating back to full, vertical height. His four arms, now seemingly backward on his elevated expanse, each pivoted at the elbow joint until they were facing the correct direction. A quick diagnostic scan told Bertie that all systems were normal and the only setback the explosion had dealt him was the loss of two of his guns. Bertie scanned the area for the others and immediate danger. Malo was slowly getting to his feet and Otto and Dr. Blink lay just a few yards in front of his position, both coughing and struggling to get up.

  Otto gasped for air and opened his eyes. He rolled onto his stomach, pushed himself to his hands and knees and took inventory of his physical state as quickly as his pounding head would let him. He could hear the crackling of fire and smell the nasty fumes of death and destruction. He could hear shrieks and growls and the sounds of whips snapping somewhere to his left. Then he heard something else—something much friendlier. A dazed, high-timbred moan came from his right. Dr. Artemus Blink was just a few feet from where Otto had landed and was coming around. “Doctor? Are you okay?” Otto said between sputtering coughs.

  “I think so, Major.”

  “C’mon, we have to get up and take cov…”

  Otto’s ears filled with a dreadful sound and he cringed from the coming detonation that would erase both himself and Dr. Blink from existence.

  Two large booms filled the yard, their terrible report heralding the arrival of death come to take two more souls for its macabre collection. But the appointment was interrupted.

  Bertie flew in front of Otto and Dr. Blink, rotating his table out and down over his right-hand treads just in time to take the full brunt of the two shells launched from the Berzerker ranks. The impact crumpled Bertie’s table, curling it slightly inwards at both ends, and swept him perpendicular to his previous course. He slammed into Otto first and then Dr. Blink with stunning force and clawed frantically at the floor with both of his free hands in a desperate attempt to keep from flipping over and crushing them.

  The Berzerker cannoneer took aim again as Bertie’s momentum decreased and the three targets slid to a stop. Malo sprinted into the open, running all out toward Bertie and the others, mashing his finger to the trigger on his gun and spraying the enemy with hot metal. From the corner of his eye, Malo saw several Berzerkers crumple to the floor, and the monster holding the cannons flailed two large tentacles in the air and let out an ear-piercing screech as bullets stabbed into his slick, pulpy flesh.

  Malo dove in an uncharacteristic display of battle-charged agility, landing safely behind Bertie as enemy fire arced across the floor and peppered the wall behind where he had been standing just seconds before. He flipped up to a sitting positing between Otto and Dr. Blink, and Bertie raised his damaged table above his treads to cover Malo’s towering height. Malo rested his lower back against Bertie’s left track as he reloaded his smoking gun. “Okay?” he grunted, looking over at Otto and the doctor.

  “I think we’re both all right, considering,” Otto said as Dr. Blink squared his spectacles on his snout once again.

  “I’m a little worried about Bertie,” Blink said with a trembling voice. “He’s taken two direct hits from those big guns.”

  “How many more do you think he can take?” Otto asked while checking the ammunition left in his revolver.

  “Frankly, I’m surprised he took the first two,” Blink said as Bertie opened fire again with his last two guns. “If he does manage to withstand another direct hit, we’ll be pushed up against the north wall and another hit after that will either blow us to bits or crush us to death.”

  “I’d rather be blown to bits, honestly,” Otto said with a look of surprise at his own morbid response.

  Otto heard a loud scraping sound coming from the direction of the enemy and a distinct lack of suppression fire from Bertie. The medical machine slid the two arms which were holding guns along the edge of the table so they were directly over Otto’s head and dramatically squeezed the triggers so they clicked repeatedly. “OH, SHIT!” Otto cried as he edged his eye around the corner of Bertie’s side, pulling it back just before Berzerker gunfire ripped off half of his face. “So much for being blown to bits!” he said disappointedly, and Dr. Blink gave him a look that quickly turned from utter confusion to horror.

  Otto was about to order Malo to give Bertie his gun as he reloaded and prepared to do the same when he heard booming in the distance on his left and whipped his pistol in the direction of the noise. The sound grew louder and his gambling mind took over in the face of fear as he wondered which would be a better bet to kill them first: the line of dreadful ghouls now advancing from the west, which would break through the murk at any moment and tear them limb from limb, or the Berzerker monster intent on smashing them with a piece of broken star freighter. The booming noise grew louder, and Otto shuddered as he thought of the few remaining shots he had left in his revolver.

  Berzerkers liked to toy with the last of their prey, shooting or slicing to incapacitate rather than kill so they could devour them. Otto considered saving a bullet for each of them instead of enduring the pure horror of being eaten alive. The rumble of marching feet grew louder, and Otto couldn’t tell if it was the vibrations from the advancing army of Berzerkers or his nerves that made the barrel of his revolver begin to tremble slightly. He cocked the hammer and hardened his resolve. “C’mon, you beasts. Come and meet your maker!”

  Graale’s rocky form appeared through the dirty fog with Abalias, decked out in full ice armor from head to foot, running beside him with a noticeable limp. Abalias had not seen Bertie and the others yet, as the top half of his torso was twisted around, and his dual eight-shot revolvers were singing their loud, crackling lullaby into the smoke behind them. Graale’s hard cheeks raised in the widest smile Otto had ever seen from him as he motioned frantically with his revolver toward the monster on the other side of Bertie and their imminent destruction.

  Graale saw the frantic look in Otto’s eyes and immediately knew the score. At that very moment, the Berzerker monster hurled the conflagrated heap, held high above his head, with all his wrath and Graale unleashed The Guardian.

  Boom—flash—boom—flash—boom—flash! The Guardian’s barrels ignited and spun in a cartwheel of destruction. The three mortars exploded one after the other in mushrooms of fire and billows of smoke that streamed in every direction like the legs of a black star. The force of the explosions blew the wreckage back into the Berzerker giant, who clutched wildly at the rubble that had rolled onto several of his tentacles and was pinning him to the ground.

  “You’re alive!” Graale rumbled with joy as he stopped just short of Bertie and the others. “I thought you were gone—I thought I missed—”

  “No time for happy reunions!” Abalias’ voice cut him off from a frosty mouth. “I’m sure we’re all running low on ammo and we can’t get out of here, so here’s the plan—”

  “There’s another ship!” Otto interrupted with desperation in his voice. “It’s on the north ridge. I was having it loaded with some—er—special—cargo for a mission that Malo and I were going on in pursuit of this rogue Mewlatai. I doubt the Berzerkers know anything about it.” Otto sp
oke quickly and ducked intermittently as bullets rapped against Bertie and bounced off of Graale and Abalias.

  “But we’re trapped!” Blink interjected almost hysterically. “The Berzerkers have the eastern and western exits sealed off. We’ll never get out alive!” His voice trailed off as he tried to restrain the terror growing in the pit of his stomach.

  “Mine has vent. Bring good air outside to miners.” Malo pointed to the northeast wall where the behemoth Berzerker’s wayward cannon shell had struck the bore from the main chamber up to the north ridge. The opening was no longer the size of an air vent; it was now large enough for even Malo to step through.

  “Then that settles it, we all make for the north ridge through the vent shaft!” Dr. Blink was yelping with hope that bordered on fanaticism and a desperate smile hung from his lips, exposing his two large front teeth.

  “How many rounds does The Guardian have left, Sarge?” The icy mouth on Abalias’ hood formed perfect words, but Otto was having a hard time believing the awesome creature was the colonel. Only his gleaming blue eyes convinced him that his superior officer was beneath the thick, cryospheric shroud.

  “Lucky thirteen. Four barrels full and a kicker to end things with a bang!” Graale’s lip curled in a wicked grin.

  “Use ‘em to keep that monster from blasting us to hell,” Abalias ordered, “and everyone else make for the vent on three. One. Two. Three!”

  The Dissenters moved at a quick clip, running parallel to the northern wall toward the gaping hole. Bertie was out front, his table still elevated above his treads and held lengthwise to provide maximum coverage for the team between him and the outer barrier. Dr. Blink was once again crouched low in the channel between Bertie’s treads, but Otto had found a much more effective position. Bertie had offered him a step hovering above his rotating track, and the platform gave the major a perfect vantage point for aiming over the table and picking off unwary Berzerkers. Graale and Abalias were striding in the open between Bertie and the enemy. Abalias was dropping any who dared break from behind the mangled hull the Berzerkers were now using as cover, and Graale kept the big monster at bay by unleashing a shell from The Guardian every time it tried to aim its cannons at Bertie.

  “Everyone into the vent!” Abalias barked and Malo ducked in first followed by Bertie with Otto and Blink aboard. Colonel Abalias was next and Graale simply backed into the entrance, covering the others from small arms fire and deterring a cannon attack with his own big gun.

  “Colonel, what’s the plan?” Graale asked anxiously as the Berzerkers howled at the possibility that their quarry may soon be escaping.

  “Bertie, Otto, Blink, and Malo up the vent shaft to the ship. Sarge and I are going to get taken prisoner.”

  The colonel’s orders were met, once again, with unbelieving stares and a silence that emphasized the crypt-like features of their current surroundings.

  “Damn,” Graale grumbled. “Sorry I asked!”

  Otto and the others continued to look at Abalias in absolute disbelief as he exposed everything from his shoulders up to reveal a stern face. “Major, I need you and Malo to pursue this Mewlatai situation from the runner end. You know at least something about how their operation works. Set up a run and make it a heavy load—they’ll think it’s armaments from the Dissension. That ought to draw our traitor out. Get in touch with an Admiral Rilek. He’s a Dissension soldier playing at being a runner and he’s damn good at it from what I hear. He runs an outfit called Company 327. I don’t know how to set up a run—you’ll have to find a ringer and play it by ear.”

  “I know of one,” Otto said. “Name’s Fellini. Leo Fellini, I think.”

  “Good. Find this Mewlatai traitor and get to the bottom of this!”

  “But what about you?”

  “Listen. This Mewlatai shows up and kills our guys and then moments later Berzerkers are blowing down our front door—it’s the other end of the thread and I intend to follow it and end up meeting you and Malo in the middle! Our entire operation, the war against the Durax—everything—depends on this. Do you understand?” The colonel looked from Otto to Malo with a dire expression.

  Otto nodded solemnly at his friend and Colonel Abalias pulled his lips taut across his face and gave a curt nod of understanding. He turned to Malo with the same expectation in his eyes, but the Moxen wasn’t there. A sharp pain had flashed into Malo’s head once again, but this time it was different. The pain didn’t last as long as the previous episode in the infirmary, and it didn’t cause him to stagger; it did something far more dangerous. Malo’s consciousness left him. The sounds of gunfire and screeches from the battle raging outside of the cave melted into nothingness, and Abalias’ words seeped into his head and were lost in a dark corner of his mind.

  Chapter 13: Sounds of Doom

  The sickly puppet in Blangaris’ crushing grip choked and sputtered with elation, and he stayed his powerful paw from crushing the life out of Slaag’s body.

  “Hahahaha!” Helekoth laughed through the wheezing instrument of Slaag’s airway. “It is working,” he choked. “The amplifier virus is working—I can hear the Dissenters talking about their futile plans!” Slaag’s body continued to spasm in ecstasy as Blangaris held it easily against the port side wall of the freighter. But his rage was beginning to subside as curiosity teased the corners of his mind.

  “What do they say?” he asked, the anger ebbing from his voice. “Anything about the Serum and its maker?”

  The milky eyes of Slaag’s shell continued to swirl in a cloudy nebulous as Helekoth paused to receive the transmission.

  “The Dissenters are trying to escape through a narrow vent shaft. It seems unlikely that they’ll succeed. General Killikbar has them cornered.”

  “That beast and his dark magic deserve to be destroyed just as much as you!” growled Blangaris.

  “I know Killikbar has similar feelings toward you, my dear Mewlatai. Perhaps you two will get to prove who the mightier warrior is one day. But for now, Killikbar serves my will without question, and he has his orders.” Slaag’s body stiffened as voices from far away echoed in Helekoth’s mind and spilled their dark secrets. “There is a runner called The Ghost and he’s never been beaten in over two hundred runs.”

  Blangaris’ grip around Slaag’s throat loosened slightly as he leaned closer to hear more.

  “This runner captains a black Zebulon star freighter and they think that you are him! They are setting up a run with a ringer...” Helekoth paused momentarily to filter through the information that was streaming into his mind. “The ringer’s name is Fellini, Leo Fellini, and the Dissension believes they will draw this Ghost out by placing an order for heavy armaments. They’ll place the order and follow the run through a Dissension soldier posing as a runner—an Admiral Rilek. This Rilek owns a fleet of runner ships called Company 327. Hahahaha!” Helekoth laughed a wicked, wheezing cackle as Blangaris loosened his grasp, and Slaag’s body slid down the port side wall and slumped on the deck. “The fools are chasing a ghost and now I can track their every move. It won’t be long until the disease mutates and I’ll not only be able to hear the thoughts of the large Dissenter, but I’ll be able to control his body as well! And then there will be only one mutation left until the amplifier is truly ready! I must send word to our scientist friend on Aktuug to begin preparing the next phase. It must mutate and spread from one infected body to another.”

  “And what if your experiment fails? What if your disease doesn’t spread like you’re hoping?”

  “There is a being—forgotten through the ages and more powerful than any you have encountered, dear Mewlatai. It’s unaware of its power—a power that’s been dormant through the ages and resting in a chrysalis that shields the potential that grows inside of it each passing second. This being’s unique evolution will ensure the propagation of the infection. As we speak, my master spy is ensuring that all things of this matter will soon be in order. Once the amplifier is contagious, nothing will be abl
e to stand against me. Not the Dissension. Not their precious Serum. Not even the Mewlatai!”

  Helekoth choked, laughed and howled viciously in his iniquitous, chorused voice. Slaag’s dead, white eyes continued to stare blankly through Blangaris as his mouth opened and closed unnaturally to allow the mocking jeers and taunts to spill out.

  Blangaris’ fiery eyes narrowed as he stood over the gangly mass of Slaag’s body, now wailing with laughter on the floor in front of him. But his eyes did not narrow in anger. Blangaris had a revelation of his own.

  “They are right,” he said coolly and the laughter pouring from the heap of diseased flesh stopped abruptly. Blangaris saw the grin on the Durax’s face narrow. He was pleased that he had ruined Helekoth’s ego trip and his lip curled above his pristine, white teeth in satisfaction. “This Ghost is Mewlatai. No other creature in the universe could have piloted a Zebulon star freighter to so many consecutive victories without being tracked or destroyed. This Ghost is either the Mewlatai I’m looking for or he’ll lead me to him. Either way, he will die a horrible death at the edge of my Kaiten.” A low rumble grew in the pit of Blangaris’ stomach and clawed its way past his chest and escaped from between clenched teeth.

  Slaag’s body sat motionless on the floor for a few moments as the invader within considered Blangaris’ words. The only indication that Helekoth still controlled the lifeless shell on the deck was the clouds that still swirled in Slaag’s eyes.

  “Then you will follow the run and this Ghost and you shall have your revenge, my dear Mewlatai.”

  “And what of the Dissenters that are trying to escape? If your dog of war destroys them, they won’t be able to set their plan in motion and you’ll never know if your precious weapon truly works.”