The floor shook and the roaring was loud enough that its echoes stung my ears. I pulled my Blitzer and broke into a dead run to where I had seen her last, but was afraid of what I was about to find. The circulating air was thick with the scent of cordite and smoldering plastic and I choked as I ran.
"NIX! WHERE ARE YOU? WHAT'S YOUR STATUS?" I yelled, but didn't get any response beyond more noise. There was a ripple of explosions and I ducked as debris fell from the ceiling and rattled across the concrete around me. To cut down the time, I squeezed through a gap between crates and another sharp rattle of gunfire made me wince. It was some sort of heavy bore automatic weapon, but not one that I had heard before.
Suddenly everything went silent and I halted. My ears were still ringing and I pulled my mike free to massage them, the replaced it.
"What the hell is happening?" I yelled, but no one answered. All I got was scrambled noise and static through the earpiece.
Leaning out, I carefully stepped into the aisle the Shivers had been in, but there was no movement. Several of the crates were missing now and I trotted across the scraped tapeline where they had been. Another had been busted apart and looked melted, but there was still no movement.
Then I heard gunfire and Obie's roar and started to run towards it, but a sound close behind me made me stop and turn.
Thump.
Thumpthump
The side panel of a container trembled and I took aim. I thought that these things had been in vacuum throughout shipment so there was no way in hell that anything could be alive inside there. If that was the case, what the hell was inside?
Thumpthump. Thump.
I pulled the hammer back on the Blitzer and shuffled forward to pick up a crowbar from the floor with my off hand. Creeping up, I gently fitted it into the joint. That's when I noticed the side of the crate was covered in tiny markings, just like the ones I had seen at the Glades and my blood turned cold.
Thump. Boom. Click, Cl-chink. Whirrrrrrrlll.
Other sounds carried from behind the panel and I carefully leaned my head against it. It sounded like an electric motor, like a flywheel begin to spin and wondered what in hell was-
A silver blur hit me from the right, tumbling me hard to the pavement and rolling me over. I lashed out with the pistol and connected with something metal - a helmet, and rolled away from the attacker. It was Nix and she jumped on my like a big cat, pulling me prone beside her.
"BRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
A roar began from within the crate and was so loud that it compressed my chest and shook the floor beneath us. The side of the container vanished in a four-foot plume of fire and confetti and the high row of containers on the opposite side exploded into a cloud of plastic, concrete, and wood that rained down across the aisle. Nix pulled on me so hard that I almost dropped my pistol, but I scrambled behind her to get cover. My heart was pounding so hard that it hurt, trying to smash its way out of my chest. For the moment, it was the only sound I could hear.
The silence came again and I wiped the soot out of my eyes and both of us were shaking like wet pups as we waited. The smoke was too thick to see clearly, but something moved within it and I took aim and braced myself. Nix screeched and pulled me after her again, but this time I followed without a fight. It looked like she was yelling at me, but I shook my head since my ears were still ringing. I've never seen her this scared before and I can't blame her. Putting my arm across her shoulders, I found that she was as rigid as stone.
A figure slowly walked past and I blinked to clear the tears out of my eyes. I don't think I've ever seen death before, but this was the grim reaper incarnate. We were in deep shit.
He was at least half again as big as a normal man, with huge limbs and metal skin. Huge weapons hung on mag plates across the back and heavy bandoliers of wide linked ammo and grenades sprouted from the shoulders and wrapped around to the front like a cape. In its hands, it carried the biggest weapon I had ever seen, a massive combination of barrels with a receiver bigger than my leg. Steam and smoke poured from the weapon's mouth as if he had just climbed out of hell itself, but I shook my head. I had to reign in my imagination and swallow my fear, but it barely worked. This was a War World Criminal with his full kit and he still thought he was on the sharp end.
I leaned back and looked at Nix's scout helmet visor. She was shaking her head and I didn't blame her since I wasn't sure that any weapon either of us carried would be enough to drop him. I snapped the cylinder open on the Blitzer and popped the shells into my hand, then replaced them with HESH. It was a miracle that I managed it without dropping the speedloader since my hands were shaking like a Frother in detox.
"Listen to me," I said into her visor. "My mike isn't working, so radio K'rth and the others and let them know what we're up against. Then call Station-Analysis and get a Red BPN issued. We're in over our heads here."
I started to follow him, but she grabbed my arm and held on. She leaned close and yelled in my ear. Surprisingly, I could hear her but she sounded a thousand miles away.
"Where are you going? You can't expect to-" she started.
"I've got to try to at least keep him busy. Keep your head down and make that call!" I said and pushed away from her. I can be so damn stupid sometimes that I ought to be a Frother.
I crossed the aisle behind him without him noticing and got a better look. I 've never seen an actual War World kit before and hoped like hell it had a weak spot. The armor and equipment was customized and showed heavy damage, so I figured he must have just come off the front lines. Hopefully that meant a weak spot and I leveled the Blitzer at the base of his helmet. Just as he started to exit the aisle, I squeezed the trigger.
The HESH round flattened on the side of his helmet and exploded, forcing him to duck forward and yell. It must have caught him by surprise because he hesitated before he moved. The minigun roared again and the ceiling and lights above him exploded, sending chunks of concrete and plastic falling. He tracked his fire as he spun around and I ducked and rolled prone on the other side of the crates. They exploded into smoking confetti around me for a few seconds and I tried not to move. A few heartbeats after the fire stopped, I risked a look up and saw a trail of fist-sized holes punched through the row of crates. I did the only logical thing I could think of and ran like hell.
Cutting between crates into the next aisle, I could hear the sound of the servos on his armor and pounding of his feet coming after me. Bullets ripped a crate to pieces further down the row and I knew he was cutting his way through to follow. These guys were completely bug-fuck crazy and I definitely had his attention. Surviving a situation where your life expectancy is in minutes or even seconds probably does that to you and I could sympathize with him, considering the current situation.
He caught another glimpse of me and fired another short burst, but it went wide and killed another container. As the debris pelted me, I decided try strategy and deliberately let him see me before I dove prone behind the next row. He kept moving the same direction and blasted his way through crates in the same direction I had been going. A few moments later, I heard him open up again but farther away and it looked like he was trying to cut me off. I had lost him for the moment and tried to catch my breath.
"Alex, are you ok?" My mike was alive again and I grabbed at it.
"WE'VE GOT A WAR WORLD CRIMINAL HERE, FULLY LOADED AND MORE THAN A LITTLE TRIGGER HAPPY!" I could barely keep my voice below a yell and the ringing in my ears didn't help.
"What's he armed with?" It was K'rth's voice and I blew out my breath. What the hell did it matter what he was armed with?
"A REALLY BIG FUCKING GUN!"
"Alex, calm down," he said. "Where is he headed?"
"T-towards you. He's coming towards you," I blurted. "I'll try to slow him down."
"Be careful, we've got company of our own."
"K'rth, Don't let Angus do anything stupid!"
"Don't worry about him. Watch yourself."
I replaced the spent round and trotted after the maniac. He had stopped moving and was just standing there, so I leaned against a crate and took in a deep breath as I braced myself.
"Don't turn around, don't turn around," I prayed aloud as I flicked on the lasersight and tried to put it on target; that was my next biggest mistake beyond being born. Across his battered helmet and shoulders was the crest of the 18th Nitro Legion and this guy must have come right off the front line of a Hell like Dante or Charlie's Point. I never was smart enough to pick fights with someone my own size.
The red dot swung past him in the smoke and he noticed it, watching it like a kid might a moth. Then I heard the whirl of his minigun and he pivoted towards me, probably grinning ear to ear. I wanted to run, but this was my only chance and there was no cover here that could save me if he tried hard enough. He had been baiting me instead of the other way around and I'd feel stupid if I wasn't scared shitless.
The Blitzer kicked in my hands as the first round hit the side of his helmet, spraying water and paint flakes into the smoke. It looked like the helmet had taken a lot of previous damage so I kept my aim and fired again. It hit near the same mark, and the helmet's coating cracked. As he shook off the impacts, I did the only thing I could. I rushed him and tried to stay out of his firing arc.
He towered over me as I closed the distance and fired at point blank range at his head. I was so close that the weapon left a powder burn on his armor, but it had gone low and dented the Nitro Eagle crest on his back. I felt like a little kid as I slipped behind him and fired another round into the back of his helmet, but this time the armor split and he stumbled forward, putting an armored gauntlet over the hole. I fired again, this time directly into the split and red splashed over his shoulder crest. He stumbled forward, rattling to the ground in a heap and I covered him. The heavy round at close range had finally popped it like an eggshell and I kicked him without getting a reaction.
Prying his weapon away with my boot, I looked at leaking gore and knew he had to be dead. HESH rounds kill by blasting enough shrapnel loose to frag the wearer and I saw that they had done the number on him because even the right eye socket of the visor was even blasted out. Looking at the crimson faceplate, I crouched to catch my breath and heard more heavy gunfire in the distance.
"K'rth. He's dead." I said as I rubbed my eyes. My Blitzer seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and I let its barrel rest on the concrete.
"We've got-"
"COLE! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE! I'M FUCKIN PINNED DOWN!" Casper yelled into the mike so loudly that I almost pulled it out of my ear.
"What're you up against?" I said as I pushed to my feet and reloaded the Blitzer with standard ammo. I didn't have a lot of HESH left and hoped standard would be enough.
Angus's voice came across and he was laughing as bullets chipped the cover around him. He was probably about to do something terminally stupid and I wasn't near enough to prevent it.
"Bugs, Mister C, Billions of 'em!" he giggled like a maniac and returned fire.
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