“We did it, guys,” Nate said with a wide grin on his face.
I saw a movement behind the British guy. A giant scorpion burst from the portal, followed by another one, and another, and another… While those arachnids were large, the portal was just the right size to let them get through.
I really hoped there was some skill in my Ultimate Ability skill tree that would prevent our enemies from using my portals.
Alyson let go with a high-pitched scream when she saw one large scorpion get out of the portal after another.
“Be careful,” she screamed to Nate.
The British guy glanced back over his shoulder.
“Bloody hell,” he shouted before bursting into a race for the Humvee.
I brought up my submachine gun and opened up on the scorpions behind Nate. Vlad opened fire through the back window of the vehicle as well. He also deployed his battle drone. It materialized above the Humvee and immediately engaged the arachnids.
Nate and Alyson reached the vehicle and got inside, Nate in the back seat, Alyson taking the shotgun seat.
I jumped into the cab and swung the driver’s door shut just before several of the giant scorpions reached the Humvee. The driver’s window burst in a spray of glass shards as one of the arachnids plunged its stinger into it.
Luckily, it hit neither me nor Alyson. The girl shrieked in surprise, then took a grip on herself on let loose with a long burst of fire at the scorpion at the driver’s door. The bullets cracked its face shell and drilled into its brain, yellow blood splashing over the body of the car. The wounded scorpion hissed in pain and scurried away from the vehicle.
“Let’s go, Dave,” Nate shouted from the back seat over the rattle of Vlad’s submachine gun firing out the back window at the arachnids.
I floored the pedal, and the Humvee lurched forward, leaving the arachnids behind.
One of the scorpions, though, was fast enough to cling onto the driver’s side of the large vehicle. In the rearview mirror, I saw the creature plunge one of its claws through the driver’s-side window, shattering it. The claw opened and then its tip dug a deep indentation in Vlad’s cheek. The Russian screamed in pain and twitched violently as the arachnid closed the pincer, and then savagely pulled away, ripping a long strip of flesh from Vlad’s face. The monster fed the chunk of flesh into its mandibles and chewed on. The Russian kept screaming, his damaged cheekbone exposed.
Alyson twisted in her seat and used her Active Ability to heal Vlad while Nate opened fire on the giant scorpion. Bits of shell and yellow blood sprayed the side of the car as the bullets hit the creature. The British guy kept pouring a steady stream of fire on the scorpion until the rounds finally manage to blow the overgrown arachnid off the vehicle.
I guided the Humvee down the slope of a mountain at high speed. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw that the mountainside was alive with scorpions. The swarm of the arachnids descended down the mountainside, scurrying after our fleeing vehicle.
However, it was obvious that they could not outrun our vehicle.
“I think we’re out of the woods,” I said to my teammates.
“Not until we leave this planet,” Nate replied. “So take it easy, David. If we crash, we’ll be done for.”
I nodded. I drove the vehicle carefully but at the same time fast enough to ever increase the gap between our large vehicle and the giant arachnids behind us.
We reached the bottom and I drove the Humvee through a forest. It was not too dense, yet Echo would not be able to land the dropship there. We needed to get out of the forest or find an open space large enough for our spacecraft.
I was about to check the map when a few scorpions jumped right in front of the vehicle out of nowhere. There was no room for me to guide the vehicle around them. The Humvee hit the creatures head-on. The large off-road vehicle bounced as it passed over the scorpions, crushing their bodies. Yellowish blood poured over the ground as ruptured exoskeletons exposed crushed organs.
The tires spoon against wet innards. The vehicle rocked a few inches but did not go anywhere. The bodies of the dead scorpions had become jam-packed under the car. It was as though I was driving over thick icy slush.
“Why aren’t we moving, Dave?” Vlad yelled from the back seat.
“We’re stuck,” I yelled back.
“Get us the fuck outta here,” Vlad shouted to me. “Those bastards are getting real close!”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. The swarm of the giant scorpions was quickly descending the mountainside. It would not be long before they would reach our off-road vehicle.
I tried to get the Humvee to move, but to no avail. The tires spun, but the car did not move.
The battle drone hovering above the car roof opened up on the scorpions that were dangerously close. Nate and Vlad began to fire their submachine guns on the scorpions. There were so many giant arachnids behind us that the two guys did not even need to aim. They just pointed their weapons in the general direction of the arachnids and held down the triggers. Every bullet that left the barrels hit a creature.
However, it did not slow them down at all. We simply did not have enough firepower to stop the swarm of the scorpions.
Nate used his Active Ability to deploy the rectangular energy shield. But sure enough, it did not stop the overgrown arachnids either. They simply ran around the shield.
“Use your ult instead, dammit,” Vlad snarled at the British guy.
“I can’t,” Nate shot back. “Cooldown isn’t over yet.”
The scorpions surrounded the vehicle, grabbing whatever they could to prevent the large off-road car from getting away.
“Echo, where the fuck are you?” Vlad shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice full of rage. “Get us outta here or we all will die here!”
Almost instantly, a message popped up before my eyes, “I keep the dropship hovering above the treetops. However, I cannot find a place where I can land it. You need to find an open space or get out of the forest before I will be able to pick you up, warriors.”
Sure enough, Echo did not sound disappointed at the prospect of us getting killed by the giant scorpions. It figured. He was an artificial intelligence after all, not a real, living person with feelings and emotions.
One of the scorpions surrounding the off-road vehicle pulled itself on one side of the car. Another one took hold on the opposite side and scurried up onto the hood of the Humvee. There was a whipping sound, then an explosion, and then something metal collapsed to the car roof.
Vlad’s battle drone had just been destroyed.
The other scorpions whipped their tails at the vehicle, trying to sting it. My three teammates continued to fire at the creatures outside.
I attempted to back the vehicle up. Putting it in reverse, I floored the accelerator. The vehicle bounced, the spinning tired spraying guts as they fought for traction.
Finally, the tires found solid ground, launching the large off-road vehicle backward. The back of the Humvee crashed into several giant scorpions behind us. I put it back into forward gear and slammed on the gas pedal again, this time steering wide of the messy roadkill.
A few overgrown scorpions bounced off the front of the vehicle and the Humvee quickly gained speed.
The vehicle shook violently as I drove it over the rough, bumpy ground. I eased on the brakes to guide the vehicle around trees. Alyson rocked side-to-side, constantly watching in her side mirror. The girl held her submachine gun tightly in her hands, an intense look on her face.
I cast glances in the rearview mirror as well. The horde was pursuing, though it moved not as fast as our off-road vehicle.
While the gap between our off-road vehicle and the swarm of the giant scorpions behind was quickly widening, there were creatures clinging to the Humvee.
I heard several tapping sounds from above. Battering chitin legs echoed against the bodywork, followed by scraping sounds. I did not like it. There was
no way I could see the creatures. I could not even tell how many there were of them on the vehicle.
“Can you see them, guys?” I asked my teammates.
“Nah,” Vlad replied. “But I think—”
The Russian never finished his sentence because one of the passenger windows exploded inwards, sending shards of glass flying in the interior of the car. In the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of a stinger shooting across the back of the car and barely missing Nate’s face. I also noticed venom dripping from the curved tip. The tail wiggled like a snake, blindly searching for a victim to sting.
“Get it outta here,” Vlad screamed in panic. “Get this fucker out of the car!”
He then opened fire, trying to hit the wiggling tail. Only all his bullets missed the fast-moving target completely. The dashboard exploded as some of the bullets hit it, bits of glass and plastic spraying my face.
“Hold your fire, you dumbass,” I yelled at the Russian. “You are gonna kill us all!”
He would not listen to me. He continued to swing his submachine gun left and right, holding down the trigger and sending bullets flying everywhere. The windshield spiderwebbed as some of the rounds hit it. Some of the others punched holes through the car roof. The headrest of the front passenger seat burst apart in a flurry of shredded leather and stuffing, the round barely missing Alyson’s head.
The rounds he fired hit everything. Except for the scorpion’s fast-wiggling tail.
“Calm the fuck down, you asshole,” I yelled at the Russian.
It was a wonder that none of his bullets hit any of us.
Then in the rearview mirror, I saw Nate punch Vlad right in the middle of the face. The Russian collapsed sideways, his fingers opening and his submachine gun clattering to the car floor.
The British guy managed to grab the scorpion’s tail with his left hand. He then pressed the muzzle to the stinger and squeezed the trigger. The tip of the tail exploded into chunks of rigid shell and yellowish gore. Nate let go of the tail, and it retracted out of the passenger window, trailing the stinger that was only attached to the rest of the tail by a few loose strands of flesh.
Nate straightened out in the back seat and glanced at Vlad, who covered his nose with one hand, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Have you calmed down?” Nate asked.
“You broke my nose,” the Russian hissed at him. “Again!”
After our first mission, Nate had broken Vlad’s nose. After a little while, Alyson had used her magic-like abilities to heal him. And now he had his nose broken again.
“You had it coming,” I said. “You could’ve killed us all.”
Before Vlad could say anything, something began pounding on the vehicle roof. A second later, pincers punched their way through the metal roof. We all crouched low in our seats as scorpions clinging to the top of the vehicle continued to pound on the roof. Pincers sliced through the roof with such ease as though it was made of tissue paper. Then one of the giant arachnids on the roof peered inside, staring at us with its black eyes.
The creature poked its head in the vehicle through the tear in the roof. When the scorpion opened its mandibles, Nate thrust the barrel of his submachine gun right into its mouth and squeezed the trigger. A violent barrage of slugs drilled into the monster’s mouth, punching their way through its skull and blasting out the back of its head, blowing chunks of brain.
The dead scorpion fell away, only for another one to take its place.
I did not know how many there were creatures remaining on the roof. Probably no more than two because there was not enough room on the roof for more than three giant arachnids to cling to it at the same time.
Nate and Vlad fired their automatic weapons at the roof, trying to blow the remaining arachnids off the vehicle. Their bullets punched holes through the bodywork, and yellowish blood seeped in through them.
I could not join in because I was driving the vehicle. The swarm of the scorpions was still chasing us. If I slowed the off-road car down, they would quickly catch up to us.
Pincers tore a long piece out of the roof. Nate and Vlad simultaneously pointed their weapons at the breach and opened fire. The barrage of bullets hit the creature and knocked it off the vehicle. It tumbled to the ground. In the rearview mirror, I saw the wounded scorpion burst into a run after the truck. Yet it was not fast enough to catch up with us.
“Are there any more of them on the car?” I asked.
There was a tapping sound and then in my side-view mirror, I saw another scorpion climb from the roof and scurry to the driver’s side of the vehicle. The monster lashed with its tail, the stinger arcing into the interior of the back of the vehicle. Nate and Vlad were quick enough to jerk their bodies and duck their heads out of the way in time to avoid being hit by it.
The two guys then pointed their weapons out the window and opened fire at the scorpion. The slugs tore into the underside of its body. It was not protected by shell, so the creature hissed with pain as the bullets drilled into its flesh.
Before my teammates could finish the monster off, it scurried back up on the roof, out of sight.
“Does that answer your question, Dave?” Vlad shouted to me.
The Humvee rocked as I drove it over the bumpy ground. The two guys reloaded their submachine guns and pointed them at the roof, which was perforated with bullet holes and tears.
They opened fire. The creature scurried away from the roof to avoid being killed. Its chitin legs scratched the glass as the scorpion clung to the windshield, completely blocking my view of the road.
The arachnid seemed to look directly at me before its tail raised and then whipped in my direction. The stinger smashed through the spider-webbed windshield and reached in. I had barely managed to jerk my head to the side before the stinger whipped past me to lance into the headrest of the driver’s seat. The broken edges in the hole in the windshield snagged between segments of its tail. If I did not have the nanotrites coursing through my veins, giving me enhanced senses and reaction, I would probably not have been able to jerk my head to the side in time to dodge the creature’s tail.
“Hang on to something, guys,” I shouted to my teammates a moment before stomping on the brakes.
The Humvee skidded to a stop. The scorpion fell backward, its tail retracting out of the cab. In the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of the wounded scorpion still chasing our car. Before it could reach us, though, I floored the acceleration again, and the large off-road vehicle lurched forward, rolling over the fallen arachnid, its body crunching loudly under the car’s big tires.
A second later, we were clear of the roadkill. I continued to drive the vehicle through the forest. The wounded scorpion behind us soon completely disappeared from sight.
“I think it was the last of them,” Nate said.
“Yeah,” Vlad replied peering out various tears in the bodywork. “I don’t see any more of them anywhere on the vehicle.”
Air hissed as it got in the car through numerous holes and tears in the bodywork, as well as broken windows. While we managed to give the scorpions a slip, I was still on edge. My eyes constantly flicked between the windshield and the rearview mirror. I would feel safe only when we got back to the dropship and left this unfriendly planet. The swarm of the scorpions was nowhere in sight, yet I kept driving the car at high speed.
When we finally burst out of the forest, Echo landed the dropship and I drove it into the cargo hold.
We climbed out of the Humvee. Our mission on this planet was complete, so we could finally leave this unfriendly place. We received some experience points but not enough to level up. We got in the cryogenic chambers and were put to sleep.
When we returned to our space station, I drove the Humvee out of the dropship and into the garage. The vehicle was badly damaged, but it did not worry me. As we had learned after completing our very first mission, the space station had powerful equipment capable of repairing our Humvee n
o matter how badly it was damaged or creating a new one from scratch if our vehicle was completely destroyed. It was not for free, though. The price of the repair would be taken from our account later on.
Before getting back to the main room of the space station, we put our weapons in the vac-tube.
However, Vlad did not follow us. He said that he wanted to take a rest after the mission and he liked to rest alone.
As to Nate, Alyson, and me, we returned to our main room called the Control Room.
For the next six months, we were doing various jobs. We completed one mission after another, getting experience points and money. We dealt with either aggressive creatures like overgrown insects terrorizing colonists on remote planets or bandits and crooked mercenaries. Dealing with the latter was the most difficult. They were tough and had plenty of years of military experience under their belt.
However, unlike them, we had nanotrites coursing through our veins. Nobody except for the warriors at The Weaponized had such advanced technology at their disposal. So we had a big advantage over other mercenaries and soldiers.
Every mission was so intense we took a few-day break after completing a mission before accepting another one.
We were getting better and better at our work. We were gaining valuable combat experience. When we just started to work for The Weaponized, we had been just ordinary people. We had been gamers and all we had wanted was to play a video game called The Weaponized. But we had changed. Constantly dealing with aggressive creatures and bandits had changed us. We were no longer someone whom somebody could call inexperienced kids. We were tough mercenaries now. We were quickly becoming the force to be reckoned with.
While we had been acting as a single unit in combat, in our off time one of the members of our team preferred to stay away from the rest of us.
It was obvious that Vlad had come to dislike the rest of us. After his confrontation with the rest of us on our first mission, which resulted in Nate breaking Vlad’s nose, the Russian had become really angry with the rest of us.
When resting on the space station, Nate, Alyson, and I spent most of the time in the Control Room. As to Vlad, during the first month, he was wandering around the rooms and corridors of the space station that were not locked.
The Weaponized: The Complete LitRPG Series Page 24