Chapter Sixty-Three – Rod of God

Chapter Sixty-Three – Rod of God

“There’s no kill like overkill!”

–Motto of the Family’s unofficial Orbital Strike Squadron

***

I spun around the corridor and took in everything. It only took a split second to figure out what was going on.

There was a room at the far end of the corridor. Unadorned walls, thick, made of cement. The shelter. Before that were some doors, heavy metal things. Not vault doors, but the sort I’d expect to see in a well-secured warehouse or at the front of someone paranoid’s place.

They’d built a barricade in the middle of the corridor, but the people manning it weren’t there.

For good reason too.

Three Model Threes, a single Model Four.

The latter looked injured, some of its tentacles shorn off, and it looked to be bleeding.

I raised my Trench Maker up, pointing it at the back of the nearest alien, the big Model Four. My railgun shifted, and my plasma caster turned to aim farther forward.

My finger twitched over the trigger just as my railgun bucked. A spray of superheated plasma shot out ahead with a snake-like hiss.

The four aliens went down in an instant. The one hit by the rail thumping to the ground, a coin-sized hole smoking in its flank and the front of its chest bust apart, the Model Four slumped to the ground, the holes I’d poked into it with my Trench Maker the size of both my fists together, and the other two were partially aflame around the places where my plasma gun had peppered them with fire.

Targets Eliminated!
Reward… 85 Points

I stuffed my Trench Maker into its holster and let that get to work reloading it while I stepped around the bodies slumped across the corridor.

The guys running away kept running, but they were looking back, and soon their run turned from a desperate scramble to a confused jog. They stopped. “Are you a samurai?” One of them asked.

“Yup,” I said. “You guys okay?”

There were some shared looks. “We thought,” one began.

“We’re okay,” another said, louder. He moved towards me, a gun in hand, but not pointed anywhere near me, and by the looks of it, the magazine was missing from it. It was only a hunting rifle though, all wood with a scope. These guys were armed, but not with anything fancy.

I glanced around, taking in six or so more dead Antithesis. They’d been holding them off, then.

“Did you see Bill?” the one walking over asked. “And Gaétan and John?”

“Who’s Bill?” I asked.

“He– they were guarding the front door. Please, he’s my son.”

The guy looked old enough to be a dad. Maybe in his late fifties or so. “I… fuck, there were two people by the doors, dead, sorry.”

He reeled back, confusion and anger, then hope. “Just two?”

“Fuck,” I said. “Okay, everyone, get in the bunker, keep the doors closed until I come back. I’ll knock. We need to get into cover soon, there’s going to be a blast nearby. We can worry about other shit later, alright?”

I didn’t give them much time to protest, spinning on my heel to run back down the corridor.

It was only a chance, but there might be some guy alive up there, and if he was, he’d be caught in the blast.

“What?” I asked at the prompt that appeared before me.

That was sent out to all communication devices within twenty kilometers of the hive’s predicted location.

I started running faster, the corridors blurring past until I was back in the lobby. Two bodies still, no other aliens. I was relying on my shoulder-mounted guns, mostly. I looked around, didn’t see anyone else, then ducked outside.

A blood trail gave it away. One I’d missed earlier, heading off to the side and into the back of one of the cars pushed up against the side of the building.

There was a dead Model Three there, slumped in the shadows next to the car.

I walked over to the vehicle and peeked inside. There was someone on the backseat. Breathing hard, a hand wrapped around their leg where an inexpert tourniquet had been tied.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He had a revolver in his other hand.

I knocked on the window, then ducked to the side when he brought the gun up.

“Hey! Hey, chill,” I said. “I’m human. You need help.” It wasn’t a question, the guy was bleeding out all over the seat. It didn’t look too bad. He might even survive all on his own with his makeshift bandage, but not if some alien showed up. I had the points to spare for some healing shit anyway.