The Siege Against Tolkeen

Chapter Thirty-Five

"Shit!" cried Lucius Mallen, as the Naruni Repo-Bot seized him by the shirt collar and raised him into the air. Mallen raised his TW service pistol and began blasting away at the thing's chest, but the massive robot didn't seem to mind.

"LET HIM GO!" screamed Fransisco, opening fire with his own weapon. The blasts of force, capable of shredding a man's ribcage and vitals with just one shot, were bouncing off of the monstrosity.

The Repo-Bot hurled Mallen into a wall, with all of its might. The mystical force field built into the detective's armor activated at the last possible second, absorbing most, but not all, of the impact. The wall, a flimsy plaster partition, shattered open, and the Wolfen fell through. He found himself in a small, dark little room. Normally his night-vision would tell him what even these darkened surroundings held, but Lucius's eyes weren't working quite right. Time seemed strange, distorted. The Wolfen held one of his furry hands up to his forehead, and felt warm, wet blood pouring out. Mallen laughed weakly, and then the world went black.

Uzieth screamed with rage and charged forward. For a moment, she was glorious, a holy avenger shrouded in flames. Then, the Repo-Bot raised its leg, and caught the seraph right in the gut. She made a noise like a cross between coughing and wheezing as she doubled over. The Repo-Bot held its plasma ejector to her head, and fired. The angel did not scream as the impact of the searing energy threw her backwards.

"Uzieth!" Fransisco screamed, as the head of the supernatural detective began to melt. "You...you've killed her, you son of a bitch!" He threw down his gun, his useless gun, and began to chant softly and move his hands about, almost like he was weaving some delicate tapestry. The Repo-Bot was suddenly alarmed, as its sensors read rising amounts of electromagnetic and "unidentified" energy. Its programming taught it that a magical attack was forthcoming. The cyborg followed its combat pattern, raising its weapon to get a shot off before the spell could be finished. Unfortunately for Naruni Enterprises, its carefully wired and programmed reflexes were just a little bit too slow.

A wall of mystical flames shot into the metal monster, burning it badly and partially melting much of its armor plating. Internal wires began to pop or melt as the cyborg's sensors screamed warnings about overheating and critical damage. The robot waded forward through the wall of flames, taking more and more damage, doing its best to ignore the danger warnings and pursue its combat programming. It had to destroy the source of the magic to avoid another disastrous spell. It had to kill the mage.

"Suck it down, you tin-plated son of a bitch!" Fransisco screamed at his enemy, who was wading through the inferno. He tried to weave another spell, to trap the Repo-Bot where it stood, but was too late. The Repo-Bot emerged from the flames, its armor running down like wax. With one massive hand, it reached out and grabbed one of Fransisco's arms. The mystic screamed in pain and rage, as the super-heated metal hand began to sear his skin. Then, the monster pulled upwards, and Fransisco's arm came neatly off. The detective fell to the ground, and figured that this was the end.

Suddenly, Uzieth was on the cyborg's back, trying to pull its head off. Features which had previously been beautiful were now scarred and deformed. Half of her head was totally gone. But by willpower, she had managed to stay alive, for the single purpose of bringing the Repo-Bot down. The cyborg's neck cables were snapping, one by one. But the seraph had little time left, and the task was taking too long.

Suddenly, a beam of green-yellow light, only as wide as a pencil, shot through a wall and pierced through the cyborg's guts. The beam then began to widen, widening the hole in the Repo-Bot. System failure warnings began to scream into the cyborg's artificial mind, and it was then that it knew it had failed. A pulse of white light then shot through the beam, traveling deep into the Repo-Bot's body. The metal monster exploded inside. It fell to its knees, and then collapsed entirely, looking far less impressive in life than it had in death.

Lucius Mallen stepped through the hole in the wall he had been thrown through, holding aloft a massive energy rifle. "Idiot tossed me into the armory," he growled. "Oh, no! Uzieth! Pete!"

"The human will survive," Uzieth said, gently leaning over the fallen detective. She began to caress his bleeding stump, and pure white light began to emanate from her slim fingers. The stump closed, stopping the flow of blood. "He will live to unravel further mysteries," the seraph said. She smiled gently, and then fell over, stone dead.


Nicholas Thompson entered the tavern, his face clouded by rage. The cantina was full of thick smoke. The place stank of alcohol and grime and dead things. Humans and exotic looking D-Bees sat side by side at the bar, drowning their sorrows in cheap booze. Sure enough, Rick Freedom was sitting in a corner, all by himself, nursing a beer. The Crazy was wearing a big floppy hat to cover up his MOM implants, and a thick trenchcoat to conceal the combat armor that he wore. Thompson stormed over to Freedom, and grabbed him by his coat.

"It was you, wasn't it?" he snarled. "You were that bastard psychopath on those tapes!"

Freedom looked up at Thompson, and for a moment, Thompson thought that he could see a tear welling up in the Crazy's eye. But then some circuit or microchip inside his head sparked or exploded, and the tear dried up. It was replaced by a look of cold, calculating insanity. "Yeah," Freedom said. "How did you know?"

"It wasn't hard, you murderer. I recognized your fighting style on the tapes. And I remembered that you had done it before. Or have you forgotten?"

"No, I haven't," said Freedom, taking another swig of his beer. "It was five years ago, but I remember it all perfectly. I remember going into that whorehouse, slashing open the throats of everyone in the place, and nearly killing you when you walked in on it. And I remember that afterwards, I didn't have a single clue as to why I did it. It didn't jive with my ethical code, it didn't achieve anything, and it nearly got both of us killed."

Thompson opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Freedom.

"No, no, I can remember every bloodbath with perfect clarity. Every person I've killed, every battle I've fought, those are etched into my brain. It's the little things that I don't know about. I can't remember my childhood. Or my parents. Do you know what it's like to not know what your own mother looked like, because you were stupid enough to get a bunch of fucking soda cans stuck in your skull? DO YOU?!"

"Jesus, man, you said that you'd get therapy."

"Oh, I did, I did! I went to every single underworld quack I could get my hands on. And they all gave me all of the drugs that I could afford, to keep all of the shit bottled up in my head. It's just that a little while ago, the shit overflowed. I'm still on the drugs, though. Do you see?" The Crazy rolled up one of his sleeves, and opened up the armor plating underneath, to reveal a series of track marks on his heavily muscled arm. "I take the drugs until the shit overflows, and then I take more drugs to try to well it back up." The Crazy laughed nervously, then grabbed up a small vial of pills that had been on the bar nearby. He gulped all of the pills down in one swallow, and washed them down with his beer. He giggled again.

Thompson rubbed his forehead, and reached into one of his pockets. His fingers closed around the pistol inside. It felt heavier and colder than it had when he put it in there.

"No," said Freedom. "Not yet. Once this corrupt city of vice has crumbled away, then you can kill me. But I can't die until I've finished this thing that I've begun. And I won't let you kill me just yet."

"All right," agreed Thompson apprehensively. "But you do your best to keep this shit in your head. If I find you killing any more civilians, I'm going to bring you down." He turned away, and began to walk out of the cantina.

"What's the big deal?" cried Freedom, the implants in his head moving around frantically. "They're all going to die anyway, once Tolkeen falls!"


The massive transport jet screeched to a halt on the decaying concrete runway. The pilot, Hans Reiser, cursed. The runway had obviously taken hits from artillery a while ago, and he was pretty sure that the landing equipment had been damaged by a pothole. Looking around, he could see the remains of a rural town. Small houses with thatched roofs were all laid out in neat little rows. Most of them seemed to have been taken out by shelling. The fields of wheat outside the town had been burned. A barbed wire fence and several watch towers had been destroyed and now lay in shambles. The shattered bodies of Skelebots and golems lay about in the tall grass, often side by side with slowly decaying skeletons.

"Where the hell am I?" asked Reiser into his radio.

"You're in Angelville," the radio replied. "Used to be a nice little farming town. Even had its own little airfield in order to export its grain. But then the Tolkeen military came by, and they got it all shot up."

"Okay. What do I do now?"

"You sit back and prepare for company. The Tolkeen air force has got to have been keeping you in their sights, and their troops are doubtless on the way."

"I can't hold off more troops! My missiles are gone, and my ship's all shot up!"

"That's why you should consider yourself lucky that Angelville's also linked up to Grand Alamar by way of a sizable sewer."

There was suddenly a loud explosion from the center of the town. Reiser looked over, to see a large suit of glistening black power armor climbing out of a smoking crater. Crusty brown goo was dried onto the midsection and legs of the armor. About half a dozen humans in environmental body armor climbed up following him, stained up to about their necks.

"Shit," said the pilot, his voice amplified somewhat by the suit. "I can sure think of more stylish ways to travel."

Reiser suddenly looked down at the radar screen, and realized that he was in a lot of trouble. These Tolkeen scum sure didn't take any chances. He holstered his pistol, and then walked into the back compartment. Maybe he could be some good in this fight after all.


"Looks like company's coming," said the power armor pilot, drawing two massive revolvers which had been holstered at his sides. As if to illustrate his point, a wing of fighter jets arrived on the horizon, guarding a box-like, flying transport ship. "Anyone here like Beck?"

Next Chapter


By David Haendler.

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

GeoCitiesRank My SiteTake A TourMy GuestbookChat
Pages Like MineSearchSend This PageForums
Email Me
Area51