Death Drop (10 page)

The Berzerker with the bone plate in his head dropped on all fours and led the onslaught. The creature streaked across the distance between Graale and the ravaged pile of entrails behind him, lowering his head on his thick neck and shoulders to impale his enemy.

Graale decided that a shell from his gun would be wasted on so few, but even if he’d had unlimited rounds for the cannon, it wouldn’t have mattered: he was going to kill these bastards with his bare hands. The Berzerker roared as it launched itself through the air and soared straight for his abdomen. Graale swung his gun around to his back then clapped his palms in front of himself with violent force, catching the beast in mid-air with hardly enough space for the haze around them to pass between his stomach and the bone-blade. The Berzerker’s reinforced skull crushed like brittle glass in Graale’s grip, and its brains squirted through the sergeant’s fingers like rotten, soft fruit on a hot summer’s day.

No sooner had the nearly headless body crumpled to the floor than the next creature pounced from Graale’s right. He snatched the Berzerker around its throat and its feral growls and snapping jaws instantly gave way to a last, sickly whimper as the sergeant easily crushed the bones in its neck to dust.

The last of the three monsters opened fire at almost point-blank range as Graale dropped his second attacker. The Berzerker didn’t wait to see if his bullets had drawn blood as he jabbed the large, serrated bayonet at the end of his gun at Graale’s head. Graale could smell the tang of spent gunpowder from the still-smoking barrel as the point of the blade hit his chin with a dull chook and its sharpened edge ground along his cheek with a gritty scrape! The demon lunged in again and Graale reached down to his belt and whipped a curious-looking dagger from its sheath at his hip. The petrous weapon was as solid as Graale himself. Its handle and hilt were made of lumpy rock, but the blade now spiking toward the ground in his hand was a jeweled shard of red. Graale dodged his head to the side, and the bayonet sailed past his face and paused for a microsecond over his shoulder before the Berzerker could make his next move.

Graale swept his forearm up, hitting the long body of the rifle just in front of the trigger guard. The force of Graale’s blow leveraged the barrel of the gun against his neck, and it flew from the Berzerker’s clawed hands, spinning through the air between them before disappearing in the murky distance. Graale’s hand trailed the path of the flying gun for a moment as he followed through from his attack; then he rotated his wrist outward and launched his arm in a merciless back-hand strike. The deep red of the dagger slid into the Berzerker’s left eye and vanished, gliding through the squishy folds of gray matter on the other side before punching through the back of his skull with a wet pop!

The Berzerker’s mouth fell open, and its body twitched. Its arms fell limply to its side and Graale paused to study the morbid scene. The dagger he had used to kill the beast was never intended for battle; it had been meant for a much sadder occasion, and the encounter reminded him of a promise he hoped he would never have to keep. He cast the dark thought from his mind, pulled on the dagger, and the ghastly body hanging from his blade joined its departed brothers in a heap on the shipyard floor. Graale flicked the oozing foulness from his weapon before returning it to its scabbard and hurrying ahead.

He slowed down after a few yards, and as he came to a stop his head sagged with anguish. The Dissension soldier who the Berzerkers had been eating before Graale intervened turned his head to the side and looked at the sergeant with terrified eyes. His lips parted and mouthed ‘help me,’ but the only sounds his ravaged throat could produce were chokes and gurgles. One of his hands was submerged in a pool of blood overflowing from the hole ripped in his stomach; the other reached out to Graale, but it was too late. The soldier’s sight dimmed and his fingers lowered, softly coming to rest on the sergeant’s foot.

“I’m sorry…” Graale said, angry tears beginning to burn his eyes as he knelt down. The rough grooves on the tips of Graale’s middle finger and thumb slid gently against the soldier’s eyelids as he pulled them closed. The smaze of battle still drifted back and forth across the shipyard, and it retreated in front of Graale like a black curtain in a demented theater to reveal a wicked scene. The bodies of Dissension soldiers were everywhere, shredded and bloody on the shipyard floor between the devastated ships.

Gunfire was steadily ringing out somewhere in front of him and off to his right, and he hoped the colonel and the others were still fighting. As he rose to his feet, Graale could see the forms of creatures through the mist padding over the bodies of his fallen comrades like nocturnal scavengers under the dusk of an unnatural night. The few Berzerkers in front of him had abandoned their lines and were scouring the carnage for survivors—looking to feed on the freshest of meat.

The corners of Graale’s mouth turned downward and his brow twisted in a battle-scowl. He took aim at the gluttonous villains, but before he could fire, the clamor of troops exploded behind him. The grumble of hooves and feet, mixed with the clatter of metal, rushed through the tunnel as droves of Berzerkers howled out in their desire for annihilation. Graale spun on them and his cannon answered their wicked cries with its own mortal call. BOOM! BOOM! Fire leapt from the gun’s forge and burst from its perilous, metal seeds, sweeping through the grotesque masses spilling through the gap as Graale rushed them. He lifted the weapon at a new wave of enemies and his finger tightened around the trigger.

Wuuuuuuuuurrrrr—KABOOM!

The sound of another cannon behind him and to the left made him hesitate for an instant before resuming his assault.

BOOM! BOOM! The last two rounds in the clip on Graale’s piece cut through the air.

Wuuuuuuuuurrrrr—KABOOM!

“There it goes again,”
Graale thought. He didn’t like the sound of the big gun echoing over his shoulder—he knew Dissension cannon ordnance, and the cadence of this weapon was definitely not one of their own. The sergeant was running low on ammunition and waves of Berzerkers were still surging through the plateau entrance when he saw something shiny slide into his peripheral vision and come to a stop just off to his left. He turned to look as he slapped another full canister-clip of ammunition into the gun, and a storm of enemy bullets ricocheted in a flash of dazzling sparks from his stony exterior. “Colonel!” he rumbled as he swept the flaming barrel of his cannon across a new rush of howling Berzerkers.

Graale stormed across the floor toward where Abalias lay motionless. Fresh gunfire bounced off his back as he ran past a large chunk of burning star freighter on his left. Graale flung the cannon around his back on its sling as he reached through the flames and gripped the wreckage. The hull armor crumpled beneath his crushing fingers as he hoisted the twisted, hot metal above his head and heaved it toward his pursuers, smashing several at the front of the wave and momentarily shielding the colonel from their line of fire. He jerked the cannon back into his hands and sped toward his fallen comrade once again. As he cleared the far row of damaged ships he could see the battalion of Berzerkers that had engaged Abalias and a big monster holding two large cannons. The front line was advancing on the colonel’s position but he was more concerned with the enormous guns that had flattened Abalias and destroyed most of the fleet. They were aimed into the middle of the shipyard—they were aimed at Bertie and the Hellion. “NOOOO!” Graale boomed as he aimed his weapon and squeezed the trigger.

Graale’s gun sent a rocket through the Berzerker line at the giant aiming the cannons at Bertie and the Hellion. His dark eyes expected to see the monster go down with a hole torn through the top of him. For a split second, he thought he saw the giant twist violently from the impact of his bolt, but the sight was erased by a sudden explosion in the middle of the shipyard. “No!” Graale shouted above the bedlam, but there wasn’t anyone left who could hear him.

Graale knew his friends were dead and he swelled with grief that was almost immediately replaced by wrath. He began to aim his gun, this time at the big monster’s head, but sudden movement on the floor in front of him made him hesitate.

Colonel Jerrel Abalias sucked in the most tormenting breath he could remember breathing in his entire life. It felt like something had punched through his chest and ripped his lungs out through the yawning hole. He sucked air in short breaths and struggled to clear his vision as his helmet of ice absorbed back into the skin on his head, face and neck. His dimmed eyes flashed brilliant blue once again and he thought he saw the rocky walls of the shipyard itself smiling down at him.

“You scared the hell out of me, Colonel,” Graale said, easily supporting the back of Abalias’ head in one hand. “Can you move?”

Abalias coughed and wheezed. “Dammit, that big bastard with the cannon is gonna pay!” he sputtered.

“Colonel.” Graale hesitated. “He killed the others and destroyed the Hellion.” Graale’s eyes were dark with rage and his words crashed into Abalias with more force than the two cannon shells that had shattered his leg and almost ripped him in half.

“Dead?”

“I tried to kill him before he got a shot off…but I…aimed too damn low!” Graale grumbled in self-loathing and guilt as he looked away from the colonel’s blue eyes, scorching with rage and vengeance, and onto the empty floor.

“Then there’s no way off this rock. It’s just you and me and as many of these bastards as we can take with us!” The colonel struggled to his feet, wincing slightly at the dull pain in his leg while steadying himself on Graale’s arm. His gleaming ice armor encased his body once again just as the Berzerkers recovered from the blast of the Hellion and sent a blind surge of bullets zinging toward their position. “We’ll make for the center row and use the burned-out wrecks as cover from those damn cannons. We’ll strafe those sonsofbitches until we’re out of ammo, then we’ll charge into the lot of them and kill as many as we can with our bare hands!”

Graale winked a small dark eye in agreement as he unholstered his service revolver and handed it to Abalias. “I know how much you like these things and I’ll be too busy settling scores with
The Guardian
here,” Graale said icily as he laid a bare, rocky hand on the barrel of his cannon.

“Thanks, Sarge. I couldn’t have picked better soldiers to die with today,” the colonel said earnestly as he cocked the hammers on the eight shot revolvers. Then they both set off at a dead run between the rows of burning, decimated ships.

Chapter 11: The Dark General

T
he Berzerker called Gyumak was huge. Two of his enormous tentacle arms each wrapped around the gigantic triggered handle of a smoking cannon that he cradled to his purple, fleshy body. “Destroy that ship, you useless dog!” the cruel voice of his master commanded. Gyumak didn’t speak but he understood, and he didn’t like being called a
useless dog.
He roared at the insult; but, even with all of his strength and ferocity, he would never defy General Killikbar.

The dark leader of the Berzerkers answered only to Helekoth, and his viciousness and cruelty were almost as well known throughout the universe as his master’s. Killikbar belonged to the race called
Extollers.
The trapped souls of four of his most ferocious fallen enemies hovered around him, gazing upon his victims with lidless, white eyes. Each was a sacrifice to one of Kilikbar’s four gods of war. Their torsos were clearly outlined in misty white-blue ether that faded into trailing wisps of phantasmic smoke at their waists and illuminated Killikbar in a glowing shroud of evil. Each specter was bound to the will of Killikbar and had to obey without question: the price paid by all who fell to an Extoller under the sway of the darkest magic.

Killikbar was not a giant like Gyumak, but on his hind quarters he easily stood over seven feet tall. Before he was captured by the Durax, his fur had been a majestic white, but now the blood of uncountable fallen enemies stained every part of him that wasn’t covered by his once proud armor. The brown reeking filth was crusted to his matted fur and each battle brought a new sickening, sweet coat that streaked from his huge teeth and painted his torso and limbs in gory victory. He did not use guns if he could help it: he preferred to feel his implements of death bruising flesh and breaking bones, tearing tissue and spilling blood. Thousands of scratches and nicks marred both the enormous mace clutched in his right paw and the large, curved blade at his side. “Destroy the ship or die!” Killikbar growled with animal rage, pointing the long handle of his black mace at Gyumak as a wailing phantasm cracked its glowing whip across the glistening flesh of the giant’s back.

Gyumak screeched at the ghost and then at the two Berzerker soldiers frantically reloading each of the cannons clutched in his tentacles. The creatures bared their rotten teeth in unison as they cocked each slide almost simultaneously and howled with delight, waiting for the destruction that would follow. Gyumak aimed the left cannon at the machine speeding across his line of fire and the other on the red Hellion ship as he braced his body for the tremendous kick of the cannons and their deafening call of ruin. He squeezed the triggers. Both guns gave out a whirring sound followed by rolling booms; and then, havoc.

Almost as soon as he fired the big weapons, Gyumak knew something was horribly wrong. The Berzerker in charge of loading Gyumak’s left cannon was shredded by a Dissension mortar, and his body flew through the air, slamming into the giant’s gun arm with tremendous force. Gyumak watched helplessly as both gun barrels strayed to the right, and he was certain that General Killikbar’s spiked mace would split his skull before the wayward shells stopped flying through the air. But he was spared a cruel death by the slightest chance. The shell from the left cannon, intended for the Dissension machine racing across the shipyard floor, hit the Hellion fighter instead. Dark fate waved its mysterious hand and the slug sailed through the open cargo door and struck the power core. The ship ignited in a ball of fire and leapt into the air as if trying to reach the cavern’s domed top and escape its blistering fate. The shell from the other cannon slammed into the northern wall of the shipyard and sent a considerable slide of black rock and glittering Banzium dust to the floor.