The Siege Against Tolkeen

"Awesome," said Hartman, nearly breathless, as he reveled in the sight of his Super SAMAS. The power armor was now a gleaming black, with slightly glowing red eyes. The head had been completely reconstructed to resemble a snarling rottweiler dog with rows of tiny blades for teeth. The hands had been enlarged and the fingers elongated, to better grasp the enormous pair of revolvers which the power armor was holding. The guns were enormously large, with a barrel big enough to nearly fit a man's head inside. The damaged flight pack of the SAMAS had been removed, and in its place was an odd-looking mess of clunky jet thrusters and maneuvering jets.

"What are you waiting for?" the mechanic asked. "Suit up!"

Hartman eagerly pushed in his old code number on a carefully hidden datapad in the armor, and the suit practically swung open, the new flight pack and armor plating sliding down to reveal the inner pilot compartment. Hartman eagerly climbed in, to behold rows and rows of brand new electronic buttons and keypads. He was confused for a moment, but then managed to make sense of the odd new controls. The pilot began walking around unsteadily, still not entirely sure of how to turn on the internal gyroscope and the traction grips in his boots.

"You're going to love this," said the mechanic happily, as Hartman toddled around the garage. The alien being carefully set up a thick sheet of mega-damage ceramics in an empty corner, with a bull's eye painted in the center. He then ran back behind the Super SAMAS.

"That target there is an official Naruni Enterprises power armor target," he said. "They don't come cheap...it's about 900 creds each if you want one for yourself, but they're real durable. Most hand-held weapons don't leave so much as a scratch." With that, he pulled out a small laser pistol and began to fire at the target. His beam left a slight discoloration, but little more. "Now you try," he said.

Hartman raised the revolvers to about shoulder height and was trying to aim when suddenly a small HUD screen lowered itself above his eyes. Twin dots showed where the two guns were aiming. When the heavy weapons finally settled on the target, the word, "LOCK," appeared on each side in small, LED letters. The pilot then pulled the triggers.

Even the super-strong robotic arms of the power armor were forced back by the powerful recoil, and huge amounts of noise and smoke filled the garage. It was like a lightning bolt had gone off inside the building. When the smoke cleared, the target could be seen; shattered into tiny pieces.

"I love these!" cried Hartman. "How do they work?"

"Plasma cartridge technology," laughed the mechanic, lifting up a broken piece of the target. The chunk crumbled in his hands. "It's the same principle as an Earth revolver, with some minor...updates. When you squeeze the trigger, mechanisms inside the gun spin the chamber, bringing a plasma cartage into the barrel. Now, there's a little dynamo inside the gun too. The rotating of the chamber makes a spark of electricity, and that spark ignites the plasma cartridge. Once that cartridge is ignited, well, KABOOM!" The mechanic held up a thick black piece of plastic, about the size of a soda can, with warning labels in half a dozen languages written on the sides. "These are the cartridges, and lucky for you, you've got a year's supply. They're being stored in the garage space Mr. Perrin bought."

"Perrin rented a garage here?" asked Hartman, looking at the guns.

"Yeah. Just yesterday. Said he needed 'em for storage or something."

"Hm," said Hartman, shrugging inside the power armor. "Wonder why. Hey, how do you reload these things?"

"You know how to reload a normal revolver?"

"Yeah."

"Same thing with these."

"Cool."

"Oh, I couldn't help but notice the fragments of the Rage Against the Machine CD you had in your audio compartment. I didn't know you had a fondness for pre-Rifts Earth music."

"I can't get enough of it. Why? You've heard of Rage?"

"Of course. I collect pre-Rifts artifacts. It's more for the money than because I like 'em, but some of that old art and literature isn't bad."

"You got any music? I'm talking 1990s rock here."

"Sure! I've got music from the 1980s all the way up to the big boom in 2098. But you only want the stuff from the 1990s?"

"Yeah. I didn't like the techno-funk they began listening to at the start of the millennium, I didn't like the weird opera-punk rock hybrid of the '20s and '30s, I hated the new age crap they listening to in the '40s and '50s, loathed the reggae they listening to in the '80s, and don't even get me started on that disco revival they had right before the apocalypse. The only halfway decent music they had in that century was the jazz revival in the '60s, and practically none of it survived. Most of the modern music's either shitty or illegal."

The mechanic snatched up an ancient CD from one of his worktables. "I think this'd go well with your new look," he said, slipping it into a small carrying case built into the Super SAMAS. "Powerman 5000. Featuring Tokyo Vigilante #1. You like it, and we can arrange a purchase." Hartman pulled down on a lever labeled "Head Movement," and the robotic dog's head nodded.

"Well, you break that thing in," the mechanic said. "Oh, and you've got to fill out one of these forms every month and pass it in for something like the next year. There's a fax machine hidden under the plating in your left calve, with our number programmed into it. You can use that to send the data in to us, as long as you're on the same planet as a Naruni Enterprises sales office. Happy driving, Mr. Hartman."

"Who ARE these bozos, anyway?!" asked Sonja, one of many Juicer mercs in the HFA, as she strolled down the main streets of Tolkeen with Jack Perrin at her side. "And why do you need...that...THING that you want to order from them?"

"Quiet, my dear," said Perrin concernedly, his eyes darting around from side to side, frantically searching for Inquisitors or soldiers. At the moment, he saw none within the earshot of a human. There were plenty of construction workers, though. The streets were full of golems, lesser elementals, and techno-wizard construction workers, trying to rebuild the structures which had been damaged or destroyed in the recent bombing. The elementals made Perrin squirm and twitch with nervousness and loathing, but they were not his present concern. The construction was really going quite well; only a few storefronts had not yet been fully repaired.

"Remember," he said quietly. "I am an experimental ley line walker, and you are my beautiful, magically enhanced assistant. We are going to be performing a mystic experiment soon, and this purchase is a minor spell component. Don't say it's vital, or he'll jack up the price. And do NOT let it slip that we're not wizards. I somewhat doubt that this necromancer fellow would be inclined to sell his hard-won wares to a Coalition flyboy and a Juicer mercenary."

The two walked into a quaint wooden building (which had probably survived the bombing by means of high-powered protection magic) with a hand-painted sign saying, "Bob's Antiquities." Inside was a dark, musty store full of mounted animal heads, bogus good luck charms, pre-Rifts crap, and ancient magazines. A strange man stood behind a counter playing solitaire. He wore an old baseball cap and sunglasses, as well as a flannel shirt and faded jeans. A utility belt hung around his waist. "A graveyard," he said quietly, as his latest customers walked in.

"Where do necromancers window-shop?" replied Perrin, walking over to the man. The storekeeper smiled, and then hit a hidden button under the counter, locking the store's door.

"Mister Jericho said I'd be gettin' a couple o' customers," he said. "What can this old necromancer do you for? I've got a fresh shipment of dragon parts just itchin' to be sold."

"No, thank you. I need a specific component for a ritual I've got planned."

"And what would that be?"

"A Rhino-Buffalo's bladder. And it's got to be full of urine. A dry bladder isn't any good for me. It's gotta be full of piss."

The necromancer looked at Perrin strangely, then said, "Sorry, I don't have any in stock right now. I'll order 'em from my hunters, but give it at least three or four days before delivery. Come back then, with your money."

Perrin nodded. "Sure thing," he said, as the storekeeper unlocked the front door. The pilot and the Juicer then began to walk out.

"Say," the necromancer said. "You don't dress like any ley line walker I ever saw."

"Uh," said Perrin, obviously surprised. "I think ley line walker fashion's as ugly as shit."

"I hear you there," laughed the storekeeper, as Perrin and Sonja left.

"What do you need a Rhino-Buffalo's bladder for?" the Juicer asked, a few moments later.

"I don't want to talk about it here," Perrin said slyly. "I'll tell you when we get back to the beer-hall. But I'll let you know, it involves a bunch of mutant animals, a hovercycle, six modified mini-missiles, and an armored personnel carrier."

Next Chapter

By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.