Astonished and over-alert at the best of times, the Gronk's eyes bugged outward in distress as a dozen of the bandit's return-fire bullets whooshed around it, safely over Alpha's head, but dangerously close to its hapless self.
A guttural, throbbing, bass rumble shook every fibre of the Gronk's being, growing to a deafening roar, and then climbing still higher, drilling into the Gronk's eardrums, hammering the inside of its head in relentless pain. For the Gronk, the passing of the grenade was ancient history, but back in real time it had only just happened, the sonic boom it dragged behind it drowning the Gronk beneath its killer waves.
The Gronk gritted its teeth and waited impatiently. In spectacular upside-down-o-vision, it saw the rocket-propelled grenade reach its target - the unprotected chest of one of the gunmen.
It hit the one with the big long beard, the one that the Gronk almost liked because he had fur on his face, like Mister Wulf. The Gronk knew that its tormentors had been prepared to kill it, but even so, it liked to see good in everybody. The Beardy one had brought it food. He had told the Gronk to shut up marginally less often than the others. He had called it some names that the Gronk didn't really understand, but it figured they couldn't have been all that bad. The Beardy one, reasoned the Gronk, was the most likely to reform at some later date. If he made it through alive, perhaps after a little penal servitude, he might pay his debt to society and become a nice human being like Johnny Alpha.
But there wasn't much chance of that now. Shrieking in horror, the Gronk plastered all four of its hands over its eyes, willing the sight to be gone.
Then, in spite of itself, it peered out from behind a lattice of eight stubby fingers and watched the slow, savage moment of the pointed gyve of the grenade sinking into skin and bone. The gunman's sternum buckled before the metal spike as the grenade drilled furiously into his chest, whirling a swift corkscrew of blood out in its wake. The grenade wasn't designed for use against human targets. The gunman was too soft to crumple the spike and set off the explosives - it was going right through him and out the other side.
Hellish as it was for the Gronk to watch, it managed to work itself into even more fretting merely by considering how it must have felt. There was a flash of sunlight on something the Gronk couldn't see in the distance, and then something exploded the skull of the man next to Beardy. Johnny Alpha's second bullet had hit home.
The Gronk was impressed for a moment. Only a few seconds ago, it had been a prisoner of five gunmen. Three of them were now dead on their feet, their bodies creatively mangled, though the Gronk could no longer see them. Its somersault carried it back around again, right side up and facing away from the gunman. Out in the rocks, it could clearly see the white pelt of a deceased fellow Gronk - Wulf Sternhammer's treasured cape. The Gronk was pleased. It knew that Mister Wulf would never let it down. Unpleasant, achey, and downright painful as these moments were, they would end soon and the Gronk would be safe.
The Gronk continued to tumble. As the form of Johnny Alpha, still shooting, hoved into view once more, the Gronk pondered. The Gronk didn't know all that much about guns and stuff, but a rocket-propelled grenade was not an everyday household item. Even the Gronk knew they were launched from bazooka-tubes. If Wulf Sternhammer had launched one at the gunmen, then right now the tube was still sitting on his shoulder. It was going to take him dozens of seconds to drop the spent tube, snatch up a more appropriate weapon, take aim and fire again. Considering the grenade's low altitude, Wulf must have been lying on the ground to launch. Merely getting to his feet and fumbling for another gun could take precious time. In the meantime, Johnny Alpha was without cover or back-up, and menaced by two surviving bandits.
The Gronk panicked again. Its hearts, starved of juddermine for at least half a second, got yet another dose, squeezing blood around its tiny body like there was no tomorrow. Things seemed to slow even more and the Gronk bewailed its fate. Of all the creatures in the universe, what terrible deeds in a past life had caused it to be born a Gronkus Pavidus?
There were still bullets in the air, but the Gronk was too far away to see them clearly. It twitched erratically at the noise of each passing missile, unable to distinguish between subsonic and supersonic, not knowing whether each new whoosh and crackle was the sound of a new round passing, or the forgotten echo of an old one that was long gone. Ricochets added new frets as bullets flew at it from unexpected directions, chased by sharp shoals of rock fragments.
The juddermine maxed out. There was simply no way the Gronk could imagine things getting worse. Its somersault continued and it was upside-down once more, forced to endure the miserable spectacle of the two remaining gunmen, their eyes now locked on Johnny Alpha as they took slow but sure aim.
Johnny Alpha evaded as best he could, rolling sideways on the ground towards cover, but he was never going to make it. The Gronk watched sadly as Johnny's gun fired another round, thrown off course by his rolling motion. His opponents' eyes were clearly locked on him now, their gun-arms swinging glacially into position. Next time their slow human muscles pulled triggers, the barrels of their weapons would be aimed right at Johnny Alpha.
The Gronk prayed to its complex pantheon for divine assistance - particularly to the newly sainted Gloppus, said to watch over the Search/Destroy Agents. Surely it could not end this way with so few wrongs righted? Johnny Alpha must not, and could not, die. The Gronk could not bear to see it. The Gronk made a succession of wild promises to the departed Gloppus. It sought further intercession from other divinities, most notably Flookus, the Gronk god of unlikely coincidence. Perhaps, thought the Gronk, Johnny Alpha's armour might save him. Something, anything, thought the Gronk.
It miserably continued to watch the inverted scene. It saw the dust, blood and particulates hanging in the air, and the parodic posture of the three dead men, who still had yet to hit the ground, their bodies in various stages of collapse. The Gronk observed the long smoky trail of the rocket-propelled grenade drawing a fine, grey line through the air...
Wait a minute, thought the Gronk. Where was the bang?
It stared along the smoke trail, past the mutilated, falling corpse of Beardy, through the random patterns of blood and bone that wheeled in a treacly track in the air behind him.
Far in the distance, the Gronk saw the grenade, still intact, resting gently against the flat surface of the monolith. It was still moving, forging diligently onwards, pressing the steel of its spike harder and harder on the unyielding black stone. The long point began to crumple with exquisite slowness.
As the Gronk's tumble took the gunmen out of view, showing it nothing but the sky once more, it gave tentative thanks. The grenade was going to go off. The gyve was going to give way and trigger the explosive. The gunmen would have to contend with a massive explosion at waist level almost directly behind them. It was sure to throw off their aim at the very least. For a few subjective moments, the Gronk permitted itself to be happy. Its view of the world righted again and it saw Wulf Sternhammer much more clearly now, hunkered down in the rocks, flat against the ground, peering after the progress of the grenade he had launched, unaware that it was just about to do that thing that grenades were designed to do.
A flash of light made the rocks glint for a split-second. Somewhere behind the Gronk, the relay had been triggered and the grenade had gone off. Right now, snickered the Gronk to itself, the old-school explosive in the shell was throwing up a storm of heat and metal shards, creating a tidal wave of destruction directly behind the gunmen who wished to hurt Johnny Alpha.
The Gronk's tumble brought it upside-down again, and facing the gunmen once more, it saw their plight in a way that they never could. Even as their faces contorted in rictus snarls and their narrow eyes were focussing in hatred on Johnny Alpha, they were doomed. Just behind them was a ball of advancing orange fire and at the very least it was going to throw them off their feet. The Gronk sighed in satisfaction and permitted itself the closest thing to a smile that it could manage. Deep
down in its bloodstream, the flow of juddermine eased a little, and the Gronk started to relax.
It was thus almost back to normal when it was caught in the full-force of the explosion.
"EEK!" said both its mouths, unhelpfully.
Destructive heat pressed on the fur of the Gronk's back, an unseen force propelling it higher and faster in the air. Unable to scamper or crawl, its four arms and two legs flailed helplessly. It was heading up, up higher than any Gronk should be, and what goes up must come down.
Its eyes swivelled in terror, focussing on the myriad sharp points of rock that jutted up from the ground. It was going to fall. It was going to come hurtling out of the sky onto the forbidding, jagged edges of the shattered rocks below. It was going to die horribly, flattened like a pancake and sliced like cheese. The mere thought released enough juddermine into its system to kill a Shetland pony. The Gronk floated in a world of torment and had plenty of time to think about how much it was all going to hurt.
POINTLESS
Everything looked very different to Wulf Sternhammer. He had hardly noticed the last two seconds pass at all. He had been busy. It had been a long day.
While Johnny had duly headed along the straight road, visibly "alone" for the meeting with the gunmen, Wulf had set off early. He had taken the long route out into the wilderness, and then began the slow crawl through the rocky terrain. The monolith was an ideal reference point. A regular shape set on high ground, it could be seen for miles around. Wulf found it strangely comforting, as if some ancient aliens had set a featureless runestone in the wilderness purely to entertain passing Vikings. When this was all over, Wulf might add some runes of his own to the rock. Maybe something like "Wulf Sternhammer smote his enemies here."
He diverted himself during the long trek by thinking of extra phrases to add. Perhaps he would mention the Gronk, although he wouldn't call it a Gronk, of course. He would have to give it a kenning, a poetic turn of phrase - the fearful furry one, thought Wulf with a chuckle. And as for Johnny Alpha, well, there were too many possibilities for him.
By the time Johnny met the five bandits, Wulf had been crawling for over two hours, his knees and elbows swathed in pre-emptive bandages, his face and beard dusty with Vaara dirt. It was the price of surprise. If they were going to save the Gronk, it was necessary. Wulf's planned rune carving had extended to virtual saga-length by now. He had a whole stanza about how it felt to crawl over hot rocks all day, and another one about how he missed snow.
Wulf had sneaked through the rocks as stealthily as a giant Viking was able. He hoped that by crawling on his belly like a Saxon worm, he would get close enough to use the sniper rifle. But things had kicked off sooner than expected.
Wulf had never been that good with rifles. He preferred the comforting heft of his mace-like Happy Stick; a hammer, he would have told his Viking associates, a hammer that he used among the stars. A stjärn hammar. How they would have laughed and stamped on the floor and called for more mead. It was a very funny joke for any Vikings left around, but a thousand years of both time and distance had depleted the audience. Now, the only Viking left to laugh at it was Wulf himself.
Wulf was on his own and he owed his life to Johnny Alpha. Johnny was counting on him, and from the sound of things, trouble was approaching.
Wulf couldn't see anything from behind the rocks. He knew it would be unwise to poke his great big Viking head up and see. But he could hear the Gronk squealing and struggling. Jävlar, sneck it, damn and skit, thought Wulf. That was all he needed. He cursed himself for not starting earlier in the day. Just half an hour longer and he could have been in position. But now the voices were raised and the Gronk was struggling and there was sure to be trouble.
"It's only a Gronk," he heard Johnny saying. "I'll get another one."
That was the phrase they had agreed. Wulf had just run out of time and the sniper rifle was still wrapped up on his back like the world's worst Christmas present. It was time to improvise.
Wulf grabbed the first thing that was handy, which turned out to be the Day-series RPG bazooka. With only the most cursory glance to ensure it was pointing the right way, Wulf edged up against a flat piece of rock and instantly regretted it.
Baked in the Vaara sun for several hours, the slab was a veritable hot plate. Wulf said another rude word in Old Norse and elbowed his way swiftly up into sight. He manhandled the bazooka into position and squinted down the sight at the five gunmen. There was a big enough rock behind them and it would have to do.
Even as Wulf pulled the trigger, he saw Johnny going for his gun.
The bazooka kicked hard against Wulf's shoulder, a jet of hot exhaust flaming across his back and legs. The projectile screamed towards the gunmen as the sound of gunshots erupted in the air. Wulf was already clambering to his feet, spitting and cursing at the excess heat and dust.
Wulf wasn't looking when the grenade struck home. Instead, he was fumbling for the sniper rifle, shucking it off his back and tearing off the warm oiled paper in which it had been slowly cooking all morning. Not caring any more that he presented a large Viking-shaped target, he snapped back the old-fashioned bolt and lifted the gun to his shoulder.
The gunshots had fallen silent, replaced by the muffled, dying echoes of the explosion, and an intermittent hail of pebbles and dust reached Wulf where he stood. He looked up, not trusting the gunsight, preferring instead to squint into the distance with his own eyes. Nobody was standing at all by Black Rock.
Black Rock itself was looking distinctly smaller than before.
Wulf sensed something in the air. It was a whining noise; an approaching, loudening keen of ear splitting proportions. The single, high-pitched shriek several octaves above high C was getting nearer by the second.
Wulf looked up and saw a quivering white-furred shape hurtling towards him. It was quite definitely the source of the terrible "Eeeeeee" noise, an unending "eek" that had somehow lost its "k" in transit.
"Gronk?" said Wulf.
Instinctively, he dropped the rifle and held out his arms. The furball tumbled into him with the crushing mass of a medicine ball. But Wulf was a big man and he could take it. It was the Gronk, warm to the touch, slightly singed, and shaking uncontrollably.
"Gronk?" said Wulf with a smile. "I am glad to be seeing you!"
The Gronk just kept shivering, its eyes darting wildly in their sockets.
"My," it stammered after a while, "poor... heartses..."
The Gronk, Wulf observed, was busy having some sort of epileptic fit, but at least it was safe. He tucked the thrashing alien under his arm, bent to pick up the falling rifle, and ran as best he could across the sharp field of rocks. The terrain was precarious but there was no time to lose. Wulf was worried about Johnny.
Back on the road, Johnny was getting slowly to his feet. Bits of melted tar clung to his hair and armour from the sun-warmed asphalt. His ears still rang from the sudden exchange of gunfire. Clutching his Westinghouse ready to shoot, he advanced slowly on the fallen bandits.
None of them were moving. Johnny prodded the last two with his foot but they were as dead as the others.
"Johnny," called Wulf.
Johnny glanced up for a moment. He knelt beside one of the bodies.
"What..." said Johnny quietly, "the sneck... was that?"
Wulf finally reached the road, letting the quivering Gronk fall to the asphalt.
"Are you all right?" said Wulf.
"Yeah, Wulf, I'm fine."
The Gronk mumbled something to itself, a stammering litany of torment. Johnny and Wulf ignored it.
"I had to use der bazooka," said Wulf.
"Yeah," said Johnny. "I got that part."
He turned to look at the shattered remnants of Black Rock, an irreplaceable geographic feature that had a seriously bad day.
"Vulf sorry," said Wulf. He looked at the ruined monolith, sighing at the thought of another lost opportunity to treat an alien world to a little rune-carving.
&nbs
p; "It's okay," said Johnny. "You did what you had to do."
"I crawled," protested Wulf. "I crawled for hours across the-"
"I said it's okay," lied Johnny.
He couldn't resist a thin smile. That was it, the end of the line. These men were too dead to tell him where to find Tuka. And without Tuka, there was no Alnitak. No ultimate big boss. No Alnitak with the giant reward. No chance to take in the sector's biggest body-shark, pirate and kingpin, all rolled into one handy, expensive package, with a bounty that was a king's ransom. No more leads meant no chance of finding Alnitak, wherever he was. So much for early retirement.
"Der reward is dead or alive," said Wulf. "We still have some of the bounty money, jah?"
"I'll get the jeep," said Johnny, tramping off towards his rental car.
"Thanks you, Mister Johnny," said the Gronk meekly, but Johnny didn't say anything.
The gunmen had a jeep of their own, a rental model, just like Johnny's. It was even from the same dealer. If things had been a little different, the gunfight at Black Rock could have taken place at Bob's Autos when both sides arrived to pick up their cars. It would have saved a lot of time. The cars were snecky as hell; regular repulsor models, but with gravity magnets whose charges were long gone. Instead, the cars rolled along on their primitive emergency wheels like antiques. Johnny doubted the cars had floated in the air for a decade. But this was Vaara. The nearest repair shop was probably a long way off and beggars could not be choosers.
There was no reward without a body. Johnny figured the gunmen were too dead to haggle over their deposit, so the their jeep was the nominated hearse. They dragged the five bodies over and piled them in a grisly jumble of stiffening limbs.
The sun was barely half an hour past Vaara noon when the two jeeps left the scene of the gunfight. Realising that Johnny and Wulf would be driving separate vehicles, the Gronk's loyalties were torn. In the end, it voted to sit with Johnny since Wulf's had five dead men in the back seat. It was twenty minutes back into town and the Gronk couldn't think of much to say.
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