Guns... ammo... <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> action</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->!<br><br>Yar, been a while since I updated. Never fear! Here is another segment!<br><br>-------<br><br><br> Deep in the bowels of the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, RJ slept soundly in his bunk. He'd taken the air-controller's advice and visited the Ornery Pigeon, both to get a few good drinks and to see what kind of information he could dig up. Information, unfortunately, was scarce, but drinks were not. RJ managed to stagger back to the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> some hours ago and collapse into his bunk, where his sleep was peaceful and dreamless. <br> Outside, a dull roar washed over the area, and he stirred in his sleep, mumbling softly. Moments later, a huge explosion sent waves of sound through the ship as the shockwave rocked it gently on its landing struts. RJ came awake instantly at the motion of the ship, sitting bolt upright in bed, looking around in the dark.<br> "Huh!" he grunted, looking around in the dark. What was that?<br> There was another explosion, and this time he heard it clearly. Without fumbling for the lights, he jumped out of bed and rushed through the door and down the main hall. Seconds later, he was in the captain's chair and looking out the main viewscreens.<br> What he saw made him blink in the surprise. There, not a hundred meters from the city's main gate, a familiar-looking B-E dropship sat squatly on the ground, its loading ramps down. The huge assault blasters mounted on the chin of the ship were still firing at the gate, monstrous green projectiles streaking through the darkness. The gate collapsed under this final volley, debris flying through the air, some of it red-hot and trailing smoke.<br> The city's turrets, mounted on the walls, were just now coming on line. He couldn't see them clearly in the gloom, but he could see flashes of light as the huge weapons swivelled and fired on unseen targets in front of the dropship.<br> "This has <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> got</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> be a bad dream," he told himself. A hard pinch to his cheek later, he knew it was not. The absolute last place he wanted to be was anywhere <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> near</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> a major assault like this. He thought he might bring up the freighter online and bug out, but then quickly realized the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> was well in range of the dropship's blasters. He might be able to take two or three hits without losing it, but given the freighter's sluggishness, he figured the crew of the dropship would hit him many more times than that before he got out of range. Better to play dead then, and hope they thought it was empty and unmanned.<br> But who was attacking? He knew the Blood Eagle were often regarded as butchers, but this was utterly beyond them. Whomever was attacking was violating almost every code of combat--dropping straight onto the city instead of defeating the outer defenses first was the one that came immediately to mind. Butchers or not, the B-E were sticklers for their honor, and any pennant caught doing something like this would be hunted down.<br> Frowning, RJ flipped on the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom's</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> night-vision optiks and got a closer look at the ship. He couldn't make out a lot of detail as all the turret- and weapons-fire caused a lot of glare on the viewscreen, but he could at least tell there were warriors coming out of the ship and heading straight for what was left of the main gates. <br> He panned the screen around towards the loading ramp. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the shape at the bottom of the ramp, waving its arms as if directing the other warriors. He could see little of it, but he could easily see the horns sprouting from its head and the angular shoulder plates of its armor. <br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> BioDerms</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.<br> That did it for him. He was getting in his hardshell... <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> now</b><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->.<br><br> Sirus and Bug were only a click or two from the landing pads now, though they were still surrounded by trees on every side. They still ran (or jetted, in Red's case) at full tilt, but each had his weapon out and ready. The antiaircraft turret fire they'd seen when they began their run had ended very quickly, less than thirty seconds after it started. Whether this was because the turrets had been destroyed or their target had gone out of their firing arcs was unknown. <br> The faint sound of explosions had come to them a few kilometers back, and minutes after that, they saw that the soft glow of the city lights on the horizon abruptly disappear. Whatever was going on, someone had either destroyed or turned off the city's power grid. <br> A soft beeping in Red's ear made him screech to a halt and bring up his armor's command circuit interface. Bug went on for a few meters before noticing and stopping himself.<br> "What's wrong, Red?" Bug asked, looking around warily. All he got in return was a huge smile.<br> "RJ's all right!" he exclaimed, pointing at the wrist display on his armor. "I just got notifcation through the CC that his armor powered up."<br> "Excellent! .... but doesn't that transmission reveal our presence?"<br> "Too short for that, Bug. It's a little something me and Birt cooked up a few months back for the DTM's IFF system. It's a 'stealth' version of our armors' IFF tracking system, one that uses burst transmissions that look like nothing more than background radiation. There isn't enough bandwidth for voice, text, or map data, but for a SpecOps squad working deep behind enemy lines, it sure makes the job of keeping track of one's buddies a lot easier."<br> "Did it tell you where he is?"<br> "No, not enough bandwidth for telemetry. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> But</b><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, since this thing's only got a two-click range, it's a safe bet he's still somewhere on the landing pads, given our proximity to them." Red grinned, pleased with himself.<br> "I thank the gods you're with the DTM and not working for someone else, Sirus. Your tinkering never ceases to impress." Bug clacked his mandibles together in something resembling applause.<br> "Thanks, bud."<br> "Let's get going. From what I remember of the planetary maps, we should have adequate forest cover all the way to the edge of the landing pads." He turned and started off again, Sirus right behind him.<br><br> They reached the treeline a couple of minutes later. What they saw made them stop and cover. The <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> was close by, a hulking mass of metal in the dark. It was backlit by the glow of burning houses. The entire residential complex around the front half of the city walls was in flames. A B-E dropship could be seen parked right in the middle of the chaos, the surrounding flames lighting it up well enough for both of them to see the many dents and scars in its hull. From the looks of things, it had landed right there, plowing through several homes in the process.<br> "They dropped right on the city!" Bug snarled quietly. "Who the hell would do that?"<br> "Damned if I know, Bug. Let's get to the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->." The two of them maneuvered to put the freighter between themselves and the d-ship, then carefully darted out from under the treeline. Within a few seconds, they were in the freighter's shadow. <br> "<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> psst!</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->"<br> Sirus almost jumped, turned and fired at the voice, but Bug put a hand on the barrel of his plascannon and forced it down. When Red looked closely, he saw the slim form of RJ crouched in the half-open loading doors. "Damn, RJ, you about got yourself barbecued there," he grunted.<br> "What else was I going to do, open up a channel on the local CC and let everyone know we're here? Get in here, you two, before we're seen." He turned and disappeared into the shadow of the main bay.<br> “So what’s the situation?” Bug asked when they were inside.<br> “<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Bad</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.” Though the ship’s doors were closed, and he was fully suited up, RJ clutched his blaster carbine as if he was making a last stand. “Don’t know how many there were, but there were a <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> lot</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.”<br> “Of what?” Bug prodded.<br> “Warriors! I saw 'em just <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> swarm</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> the place!”<br> “Wait, how’d they get through the main gates? I thought those would be closed.”<br> “Somebody on that dropship just blasted ‘em to piece with the ship’s weaponry, right as they came in.” <br> “...doesn’t sound like tribals to me...” Sirus mused. Tribal honor codes prevented warriors from just dropping straight onto a city--instead, they had to defeat the outer perimeter of defenses first. The rule was in place for the sole reason that without it, no city would ever be safe. <br> “It wasn’t!” RJ said. “I was watching--well, sort of.”<br> “Sort of?”<br> “Whatever they used to blow open the gates knocked me straight out of bed. I was, uh, sleeping off some brews.” RJ paused, wondering if either of his friends would chastise him for carousing out so early. Sirus only raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Bug, as usual, was impossible for him to read. Neither of them said anything about it, and so he continued. “When I got to the bridge, I checked it all out with the ship’s viewers. I couldn’t get any detail on the warriors--they were too damn fast to track--but I saw something else--a <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> BioDerm</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.”<br> This got a reaction. Sirus cursed softly, which RJ halfway expected. Ambush, however, reared up to his full height and hissed loud enough to make RJ’s hardshell kick in its aural protection routine.<br> “--sssss! They dare to attack <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> here</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->?!”<br> “Geez! Bug! Calm down!” Sirus waved his hands placatingly at his friend. Ambush stopped his outburst, but he continued to tremble with rage. “I know you hate the ‘Derms--hell, just about everybody does! But you can’t go off half-cocked!”<br> “And we <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--><u>are</u><!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> outnumbered, if you hadn’t noticed...” RJ put in quietly. “What are we going to do, just charge in there and take ‘em all out?”<br> Ambush shook his head. “...sorry. My hatred got the best of me for a moment there. But we can’t just leave. We don’t even know what’s going on.”<br> “Oh, I agree with that, Bug. We certainly can’t leave, but we can’t just go in with guns blazing.”<br> “Yeah, considering we only have two guns to blaze with,” RJ added.<br> “We can, however, get in and find out what happened, and then get a message out to any tribes in the area. It’s the least we can do.”<br> “Risky...” Sirus mused. <br> “Yes, but I don’t see any other options. We can’t stay in the ship--they’ll come out and enter it soon enough, I think.”<br> “I’m up for it, then.” RJ said. “Sirus?”<br> “No complaints here, RJ.”<br> “All right then,” Bug said. “Let’s get on the bounce.”<br><br> When Ambush first joined the DTM as an applicant, finding a place for him had been difficult. What was one to do with a seven-foot insect warrior? And how does one integrate him into the human forces he is a part of?<br> The latter question was, remarkably enough, easier solved than the first. Mercs are, by and large, able to get used to just about anything. The introduction of a non-human member of their ranks, though it caused some puzzlement (and not a few clashes) quickly became ‘normal’ enough for the mercs to handle without batting an eye. It certainly was easier to handle than combat on a lonely and cold Starwolf planet, that was for certain.<br> After a few weeks, it was discovered that Bug had more than a passing familiarity with the arts of stealth and close-combat. Though his skills with ranged weapons were mediocre at the beginning, not a single merc had it in him to best him at hand-to-hand. Part of this was due to his raw speed, but much of it was due to his long experience on his homeworld, where close-quarters combat was the norm and a missed block or dodge was death.<br> He had no martial-arts training to speak of, at least none that had an actual name. He was, however, able to quickly and easily adapt his own style with the accepted forms taught on Fenecia, and from there it was a short jump to instructing. The mercs found him a brutal teacher, and even through the protective layers of their hardshells, many went to their barracks at the end of the day with bruises and pressure-cuts. But all gained from it, even Bug, for his students took every opportunity to surprise him.<br> Not many knew he was an assassin before his time with the DTM. His experience in getting into and out of ‘the damndest places’, as one merc put it, served him well. It was not long before he was one of the squad leaders of the ‘base cracking’ crew, those fellows tasked with either sneaking or battering their way into a base, usually to destroy generators or key objectives. The fact that he took great pains to get his squad out alive was not lost on his fellow mercs, and they respected him for it, even if they could not understand him very well.<br> This was the primary reason Bug took point as he, RJ, and Sirus made their way towards the walls of Cible. Sirus, who’d been with Bug on almost all of his missions, knew that Bug had an instinctive grasp on the tricky task of getting into a place unseen... and alive. RJ, who was more experienced in social engineering (and was wearing the lightest armor of the three) was better at fire-support in this situation, and so he lagged a bit behind his friends, ready with his carbine.<br> Bug gave over his plascannon to Sirus. From RJ’s description of the attacking warriors, he knew he’d be better off with his staff. Sirus was also a much better shot than he, and though Bug favored the plascannon above almost all of the other hardshell weapons, he knew he was not good enough with it for this. He also tended to overuse ammunition, and there were only forty rounds in the containment bottle--Sirus would be able to make better use of those rounds.<br> They crept across the blank expanse of the landing pads, hoping against hope that the invaders hadn’t posted watchers on the walls. They could see none, and they were not challenged at all. The rapidly-darkening night enveloped them wholly, their dark armor disappearing into the broken shadows at the base of the wall.<br> RJ pointed them towards a side gate in the wall, the one he’d used after clearing Port Authority. It was well-lit and had guard posts to either side. The posts were empty. They looked to have been abandoned in a hurry, for there were datapads and other such items scattered about. The gate between the posts stood open, and it beckoned to the three mercs with its shadows.<br> “For a town that’s getting thrashed by warriors, this place is <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> way</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> too quiet,” RJ muttered. “You’d think we would have heard more from the local garrison.”<br> “Never mind that. Let’s get into the shadows before we are seen.” Bug forged through the gate, staff at the ready, his angular form melting into the darkness beyond. The others followed.<br> As soon as they got through the gate, RJ took a moment to jet quietly up to the roof of the first building he found, the better to provide covering fire. He crept along carefully, trying not to dislodge anything on the roof that might make noise. He was forced, as was Sirus, to turn on his light-amp optiks, for the city was completely without illumination. Evidently, the attackers had gone for the city power supply right off the bat.<br> The street that stretched out before them was empty. They saw darkened buildings, open doors, but no people of any kind. One of the nearby buildings looked to be a barracks of some kind--not surprising, given its proximity to the Port Authority. Bug waved them over toward the door, and motioned that Sirus should cover him as he went inside. Red nodded, and got a firmer grasp on his plascannon.<br> The door was plenty large enough for Bug to get through, for it was made to accomodate even the largest of hardshells. Inside though, it was too small for him to use his staff effectively, so he exhanged it for the B-E <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> katar</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> on his harness.<br> He saw rows of bunks stretching the distance of the barracks, complete with spacious trunks at the foot of each. At the very back was a single inventory, though it was dark and unpowered. He was surprised that the garrison hadn’t supplied a backup generator for it, as was standard practice on Fenecia. Ignoring it, for it was useless to he and the others, he went down the rows, yanking open the trunks and opening the weapons lockers he found at the back end.<br> As he’d surmised on the way to the city, there were plenty of weapons to use. He quietly called Sirus and RJ into the barracks to look through the stash. There was plenty to go around.<br> As usual, Bug mounted a shield pack and an assortment of weapons on his person, including a Wrath cannon, just in case. It massed a ton (though it weighed less thanks to implanted T-grav nodes), but having it on his harness made him feel more at ease. Sirus also went for a shield pack, for he’d be right up close to Bug, and was certain to be in the thick of things. He also picked up a grenade launcher, one of his favorite weapons for close combat, along with a shocklance. It wouldn’t replace Bug’s <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> kopesh</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, but it was a handy thing to hang on his hardshell. RJ found one of the new cloak packs and a pack of flashbangs to his liking. He also procured a spinfusor and a chaingun--those were ‘mobility’ weapons, and out of the three, he had the most on-the-ground speed to use.<br> Now suitably equipped, they left the barracks and continued further into the city.<br> It wasn’t long before things began to change. The streets, empty and clear of any sign of citizens or invaders, began to become cluttered with debris. Nearby buildings stood open, their doors kicked down or ripped off their tracks. Broken shipping crates littered the street, along with heavily-damaged furniture and various other household items.<br> Then they saw the first body. It was almost lost in the shadows of a partially destroyed wall. Sirus, who spotted it first, pointed it out to the others. While Bug and RJ covered him, he went to get a better look. Examination was difficult with just light-amp gear, but he got enough details to suit him. What he saw wasn’t pretty by any means, but it told him what he wanted to know.<br> The body was that of a young man. He appeared to be a member of the local authorities, judging from the softshell armor he wore. His cold hands clutched a small blaster pistol--rigor mortis had locked his fingers around the grip. Sirus saw that the charge indicator on the pistol was empty--before the man had died, he’d evidently emptied the pistol into whatever attacked him. Not that it had done any good, for there was no other body around him.<br> Red was curious about the manner of the young man’s death, for he could see no marks on him. But, as he rolled the body over, the mans arms shifted enough for Sirus to see that there was a ragged hole punched through the center of his chest. The armor over his chest was cracked deeply around the edges of the hole as if the manner of death had been some massive impact. It sure looked as if someone in a hardshell had simply run a fist through the poor fellow, and that was precisely what Sirus concluded. It was not an uncommon thing to see in battle, either; hardshells made a man so strong that even a single blow could be this devestating.<br> It was brutal, though. Just like a BioDerm. Red grimaced.<br> “Poor scroff got a powered fist through the chest, looks like,” he told the others quietly. “The ‘Derms sure like their grisly killings.”<br> Ambush hissed quietly, and RJ said nothing. They’d seen it before, many times. That didn’t make it any less cruel. “All right, form up again,” Bug ordered softly. “Where there are bodies, there are killers.” Without further word, they continued their walk. It was only a few dozen meters before they came to an archway. RJ identified it as the one that led to a large open-market area. <br> The smell hit them first, cutting right through RJ and Red’s filters. Ambush physically recoiled from it. “I have not smelled such death in...” he began, but then he got a look through the arch. Had it been possible for him to gasp, he would have--the sound that came out of his was a single soft click of his mandibles. “Gods below...” he said almost too quietly to hear.<br> The market area was almost completely carpeted in bodies. Men and women, in hardshells and out, lay in various states on the stahlplast. Dried blood covered what parts of the ground that weren’t hidden by bodies. The gore was almost too much to take in, even for the three of them--they’d seen much in their years as warriors, but this was just too much.<br> Though they were appalled at the death that lay before them, the scene seemed ‘off’ for some reason. It was RJ who picked up on it first, and that was mostly due to his elevated position.<br> “There aren’t any blast-craters,” he said, surveying the market, spinfusor at the ready. <br> “What?” Sirus turned to look at him.<br> “No blast craters, Red. There weren’t any explosive weapons used here.” He pointed to the walls of the marketplace. “Plenty of blaster marks and a few flechette tracks from a chaingun or two, but no heavy weapons.” <br> As Red and Ambush looked over the bodies as well as the walls, RJ’s conclusion made more sense. Almost all of the bodies were intact--in fact, most of them were in remarkably good condition, save for one or two horrendous-looking torso wounds. That was not the usual way bodies looked when hit by powerful hardshell weapons--most bodies weren’t even bodies after such an encounter. As the mercs put it, ‘pink mist’ was the kindest term one could use for such a description.<br> “This does not seem like a typical attack from the Slonn,” Ambush said. “I would expect more gore--they revel in it.”<br> “Whoever did this was powerful--they even did the same thing to the hardshell troops.” Sirus pointed to a group of warriors near the opposite archway. From the looks, they had made a stand, and paid for it. Just like the other dead, they too bore wounds from powerful physical blows aimed at the weak spots in their armor.<br> “Guys, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time we got the hell out of here,” RJ said, his voice tense with nerves. “The pucker-factor of this place just went up by about twenty notches by my count.”<br> Ambush nodded. “I am in agreement--from what I see here, we stand no chance against these attackers. We must bring reinf--“ Bug’s words stopped harshly, and he snapped around to stare directly at the opposite arch. He hissed quietly, then spat out some curse neither of his friends could recognize. “We’ve been spotted.”<br> All three of them heard the soft sound of many feet coming from the arch; it seemed as if a group of warriors was heading down the street directly towards them. None of them, though, could see anything, even through their optiks. The sound grew in volume rapidly, became flatter as the onrushing warriors got closer.<br> “Damn, we don’t even have time to run...” Sirus breathed, leveling his plascannon at the archway. He had no more completed his sentence when the warriors came out of the arch at a full run.<br> His first reaction was shock, even though his battle-training screamed at him to pull the trigger and began backing away. There, barely visible in the starlight as they paused for a moment to assess the situation, stood four insect warriors.<br> They looked so much like Ambush that for a moment, he wondered if he was seeing things. From the purple compound eyes, to their battered olive-green carpaces, and even to the swords and push-daggers they carried, they were almost as exact duplicates of his friend. Bug’s next words, at a roar that surprised Sirus in its volume, snapped him out of it.<br> “<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> KILL THEM! <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--><u>NOW!!</u><!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--></b><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->”<br> Ambush wasted no time with further commands. In a single motion, he pulled a throwing wedge from his harness and hurled it at the lead warrior. The blade whizzed across the market and thudded deep into the right eye of the warrior, which screamed shrilly and began thrashing its arms about, trying to pull the blade out. The other three charged at the same moment, going for each of the three mercs separately.<br> RJ, from his vantage point, let loose with a disk at the feet of the first charging warrior. To his complete surprise, it jumped clean over the whizzing projectile, a ten-meter bound that was over so quickly he would have missed it if he blinked. It changed direction and barreled for the base of the wall he was standing on. He swore loudly and lined up another shot. He pulled the trigger again, leading it this time. It was not going to surprise him aga--<br> He dodged to the left only barely in time. The warrior made another leap, bounding the five meters to the top of the wall in the blink of an eye. It lashed out with its sword as he dove off the wall, the blade scraping across his shoulder pauldron, sending sparks flying. He did a flip and landed on his feet, turning around to see the warrior as it leaped over the wall <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> again</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, coming directly for him. RJ opened the throttle on his jets all the way, and he shot upwards out of way just as the warrior landed where he’d been standing. It hissed loudly and made a standing leap straight up to catch him.<br> He pulled the trigger of his spinfusor again. The warrior, unable to change direction in mid-leap, took it full in the face, and it was battered to the ground, horribly mangled. It was so close, though, that RJ was bodily thrown upwards, the shields around his leg-armor blasted to nothingness.<br> The second warrior went for Sirus, making huge bounds across the marketplace, its sword at the ready. Sirus had enough time to realize that his plascannon wasn’t going to be fast enough to hit it--he’d seen RJ’s first shot miss cleanly. He dropped it and drew both Bug’s <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> kopesh</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> and his shocklance--he’d sparred with Bug enough to know that he’d have to use two weapons, one to hit with and the other to block with.<br> In a heartbeat, it was on him. Red managed to block the first swing of the insect’s sword, but it connected with its other hand, open-handing him square in the chest. The blow wasn’t nearly as strong as one from Ambush, but it was more than enough throw him off balance. He toppled backwards, landing squarely on his ass. He looked up and saw the warrior preparing a downward thrust meant to skewer him.<br> Sirus triggered his jets in pure reflex--as he was laying almost flat on his back, the thrust sent his scooting along the stahlplast market floor. The warrior’s blade thunked into the ground between his knees as he scuttered away from it. It let go of the weapon, which was stuck into the ground, and leaped forwards, aiming to impale him with its forearm blades. Red put up the kopesh and managed to entangle one of the warriors forearm blades with it. He grunted with the effort, for the warrior was pressing against the blade fiercely trying to get at him. It slashed at him with its free hand, the talons raking across his chestplate, leaving tracks in the metal. Still using the kopesh to keep it at bay, Sirus brought his shocklance up with his other hand and aimed it at the insect’s chest. He pulled the trigger, and the bright spear of electric death snapped out and shattered the warrior’s thorax. Dark blood gushed across Sirus in a fountain, and he was momentarily blinded as it covered his faceplate.<br> The last warrior wasted no time in going after Ambush. It saw an opponent it was familiar with--a warrior from another hive--and screamed a hissing war-cry as it bounded at him. It didn’t bother with its sword, but instead went straight in bare-handed. Though Ambush was fast, this warrior almost equaled him in speed, and it collided with him, fists flailing. The two were a whirlwind of blows--when the warrior connected, there was a gonging sound as Bug’s armor plate shivered under the impact.<br> The warrior changed tactics and grabbed Bug’s forearm, trying to pull him off-balance. Ambush knew this trick, though, and whipped his arm forwards quickly, his reinforced arm-blade severing some of the warrior’s fingers in the process. It hissed at him and landed a square blow to Bug’s head, stunning him for a moment. It landed two more before Bug recoved, but when he did, he lashed out and grabbed one of its arms with both hands. With a savage twisting motion, he broke it at the elbow, then let go and let loose with a powerful backhanded swing of his left arm that drove the point of his arm-blade straight into the joint of the warrior’s neck.<br> It screamed once more and collapsed, limbs jittering in its death-throes. Ambush turned to face the warrior he’d pegged with his throwing wedge. In the few seconds of combat that had ensued, it had removed the wedge. It stood there for a moment, surveying the scene with its remaining eye, then turned and bolted back through the archway. Ambush whipped out the chaingun he’d picked up in the barracks and let loose with a burst of flechettes down the street. The warrior staggered as a few of the explosive flechettes struck it in the back, but it continued bounding away at full speed. Within seconds, it was out of sight and out of range.<br> “Blast and damnation!” Bug swore. “One of them got away!” He turned to look at his fellow mercs, not entirely sure what had happened with them. The brawl with his lookalike had kept him busy. Sirus, he saw, sat at the foot of one of the warriors. Its thorax was completely shattered, and Red was covered in its purple blood. RJ was slumped against one of the market stalls, his lower body armor scorched. A messy pile of broken chitin still smoked at the edge of the marketplace, marking the place of death for the warrior that had attacked the mercenary infiltrator. “Are you two all right?” he asked, going first to Sirus and pulling him to his feet.<br> Sirus swiped his hands at his faceplate, getting most of the blood out of his way on the first try. “Damn, these things bleed a <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> lot</b><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->,” he muttered. “Yeah, I’m fine, Bug... all that sparring we did really came in handy.”<br> “RJ?”<br> RJ groaned and got shakily to his feet. He wasn’t injured save for a few bruises along his legs--the blast hadn’t been quite point blank--but he was still in pain. “Yeah, just gimme a bit for the drugs to kick in,” he said, referring to the mix of painkillers and stimulants his armor would shortly be injecting into his bloodstream. “Hunter, those things are <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> fast</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.”<br> “Of course they are--they are warriors like me.” Bug looked around the market.<br> “Bug, what are they doing <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--><u>here</u><!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END-->?” Sirus asked. “I thought you said your kind didn’t travel through space.”<br> “They don’t, Red. That’s the problem.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking. “And they obviously came with the BioDerm that RJ saw...”<br> Sirus said it first. “Bug, they aren’t after <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> you</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, are they?” He was referring to what Bug had told he, Warren, and Spectre some time ago, that the Queen that had exiled Bug would come to destroy him should he let any information about his hive get out. <br> “I don’t know.” Bug’s antennae trembled. “But I can’t discount that possibility.”<br> “But why are the ‘Derms mixed up with them?”<br> “Right now, that doesn’t matter a whole lot, Red. The warrior that got away is doubtless going to inform its brothers of our location. It would be in our best interests to run. We can take four of them, as we just did, but if more than that show up, we won’t get out of this alive.” Bug strode over to RJ, who was still unsteady on his feet. “Are you able to run?”<br> “I don’t know, Bug... that disk blast really screwed up the leg-servos in my armor,” he said.<br> “Then you will ride. Get on.” Bug turned around and put his back towards his fellow merc. RJ wasted no time in straddling Bug’s horizontally projecting abdomen and locking his arms around Bug’s torso. “To the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><i> Maelstrom!</i><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->” <p><BR><img src=
http://scribers.midwestmail.com/ambushbug/BugSig.jpg align=LEFT><BR>Member: DTM, XMEN<BR>Professional Tank Driver<BR>Card-carrying Base-Cracker<BR>Ugly Son-Of-A-Gun<BR><BR>Bug's Tank Bumper Sticker:<br>"If you can read this, you're already street pizza."</p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=
http://pub3.ezboard.com/uambushbug.show ... =EN>Ambush Bug</A> <IMG SRC="
http://www.xmenclan.org/images/x.gif" BORDER=0> at: 4/3/02 1:53:37 am<br></i>