Heavy Metal Thunder Read Free Page B

see the shield, but suddenly your jetpack
bucks and you feel an intense heat building in your suit. Your weapon nearly
flies out of your hands. Someone mutters, “Steady, steady, don’t let go...”
    You know that at any moment the ship can blast all
of you with its massive laser cannons; worse than that, if you fly too close to
your comrades, you could collide and knock everyone out of formation and the
shield would most likely incinerate you.
    You glance to the side as the bombers streak by
silently, unloading their payloads of missiles at the Invader ship. Far from
you, the shield lights up as missiles slam into its surface, some exploding on
impact, some bouncing away harmlessly, others grinding through like buzz-saws -
these last are, apparently, fitted with the same sort of field-generating
charges as your own weapon.
    You see dozens of red flashes as the Invader ship fires
at the missiles. The sight is disorienting; your teeth rattle in your skull; it
feels as if your suit is cooking you alive.
    Unless you have the Jetpack Skill , you cannot
seem to stay close enough to your comrades and so, due to the intense heat and pressure
of the shield, you lose 3 Blood . However, you may subtract your Defense rating from this amount if you happen to be wearing any Armor .
    Finally you burst free from the energy shield,
rocketing toward the ship as your suit quickly cools down. One fanatic whoops
loudly, then blasts ahead of you. Someone says, “We’re
gonna have to hack in somewh -” just as one missile
breaches the shield and slams into the Invader ship. There is a flash, a rush
of white mist, then a gaping hole highlighted by molten slag.
    “We go in through there,” says Commander Uther.
“That’ll make our job easier.”
    “Maybe it already hit the shield generator,” says
someone.
    “Probably won’t be so lucky,” says Sybel, the
strange dream interpreter.
    As the bombers streak away in a tight curve, you and
your comrades fly toward the hole in the black hull of the Invader ship.
    Turn to section 282 .
     

21
    You dig your hands into the ground, then push off, floating silently through the darkness near
the sniper’s rocky hideout. Moments later you see the dim shadow of the sniper
as he peeks around the corner, rifle in hand. He is very close to you, but you
are not sure if he sees you or not.
    If you want to attack him with a gun, turn to
section 147 .
    If you want to blast forward and take him head-on,
with or without a hand-to-hand weapon, turn to section 232 .
     

22
    “Get that crap away from me!” you scream as you knock
his hands away from you. The doctor looks at you in shock - then his lips pull
back in a sneer, his eyebrows curl with malice, and he lunges at you.
    You grab his wrists and hold him back as he tries to
jam the syringe into your torso. Sweat rolls down his face in torrents and his
lips contort like a madman’s. The doctor is not well and he is trying to kill
you.
    Turn to section 241 .
     

23
    You kick off and fly towards the guard. Just as he
swings his pipe into the side of your helm, you swing your fist and knock the
flashlight from his hand. As it spirals on some crazy axis, you and the guard
grapple for supremacy as you float in the darkness. His enraged face hovers in
your vision, hissing and growling, and you both move with terrible slowness, as
in a nightmare.
    You must now compute a number that will determine
the result of your battle. Add your Zero-G Combat stat to your Dexterity and Strength Stat.
    As the guard fumbles about with his beefy hands, he
manages to crush 8 Blood from your body, but you may subtract the above
number from this amount of lost Blood. If your Blood score drops to zero or
less, then the guard somehow yanks your helmet off and, stuck in his unmerciful
bear hug, he bites into your face and jerks the skin clean off your skull with
a twist of his neck.
    If you survive his grappling, then you manage to
pull free from his grasp. As he waves his huge