The Rhino Score (9)
May. 31st, 2011 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsolThe pounding at the front doors was becoming more insistent. I put my back against the paneled wood and braced against the slippery floor along with three of my strongest Chulkos. Lopez was balancing on top of my head and peeping through the clerestory windows.
"Uh oh," he said. "The cops are bringing a ram."
We were on the fourth hour of our standoff. After a few initial sorties using firearms, the police finally figured out that their antiquities were fragile. As we weren't fighting back with lethal force, they decided (as Swam1 had predicted) that they would try to take us by brute force. We had done a decent job of holding them off, but everybody knew it couldn't last.
The comm buzzed in my ear. "Jackpot," said Grabsy, "there are snipers on the roof."
"I'm a little busy right now," I grunted.
"Shall I take it upon myself to resolve this little difficulty by any prudent means?"
I had to think about that one. "Uh, sure," I said. "Still no killing, though. Not yet."
Grabsy pondered that one. "Supposing a person were to fall from a great height," he suggested, "and the resulting impact were to kill that person, leaving me blameless."
"Stop splitting needles," I barked.
"Oh, all right," sulked Grabsy and signed off.
The ram began to pound at the door. The door was heavy but it couldn't stand up to that kind of punishment for long. I activated one of my gloves and vibrated a small hole low in the door. Then I dropped a stun grenade through. After a few seconds the door lurched, and there were a handful of wet thuds. We cracked the door and pulled the ram out of the hands of the unconscious policemen. We started receiving incoming fire before we could loot them further, however, so we buttoned the door back together and paused to catch our breaths.
"Not long now," said Lopez.
"Nope," I agreed. "The Man is going to be taking the kid-gloves off any minute now, fragile museum-stuff or no."
"I hope Swam1 is getting good footage of all this," Lopez said. We had patched the exterior security camera feeds over to Swam1, who was busily piping it over the Chulkasai language stations with Chulko anthems playing in the background. Certainly the Mastazi couldn’t allow that kind of cheeky fun to continue for long.
"There are no snipers on the roof," Grabsy reported.
"That's nice," I said. "Did any of them fall to their deaths?"
"The body count would be zero," Grabsy said, "if I could round to the closest ten's place."
"Dammit, Grabsy!"
"Oh, shut the hell up," growled Grabsy. "I'm getting sick of this asinine plan. It's obvious they're going to drop the hammer on us soon and we'll all be dead; we might as well take a few out before we go."
I put a finger over the receiver bud. "Are we ready in the Rotunda?" I asked Lopez.
"We're ready," he said.
"Grabsy," I said sternly, "meet us in the Rotunda."
In the Rotunda, the enormous gleaming statue of Khmamgdan frowned down at us, one claw raised in a salute, or possibly a rude gesture. I had Grabsy, Lopez and any Chulkos I could spare stand in a line.
"Men," I said, pacing before them, "I've never been prouder to serve with a braver group of soldiers."
"Oh for fuck's sake," said Grabsy exasperatedly. I ignored him.
"You have been rock solid in the face of insurmountable odds," I continued. "All of you have shown the guts of champions. Like you, uh, You," I said to one of the Chulkos, thumping him on the chest. I still couldn't tell them apart. It didn't matter; they couldn't understand what I was saying anyway. They didn't care; their God was giving them a pep talk. They grinned like the idiots they were.
I stopped pacing and looked from one face to the next with what I hoped was a steely gaze. "I cannot ask you to keep fighting, however," I said. "If any of you wish to stop now and attempt to escape, you may go with no ill will from me."
"Now we're talking," muttered Grabsy.
"If you brave defenders of Chulko independence wish to leave," I said, "you have only to step forward across this line." I drew a ragged line on the floor with the butt of my cigar.
Grabsy promptly stepped across the line and disappeared through the floor, crying out in surprise before hitting the bottom of the pit with a muffled thud. Sniggering, Lopez turned off the static floor. We peered down at Grabsy, who was fifteen feet down. He glared balefully back up at us. "Somebody's going to die for that," he said calmly.
"Oh, relax, Grabsy," I said. "I just wanted to show you our bolt-hole. Lopez, lower down a centuries-old arras or something to help Grabsy back up. See, when the bad guys finally penetrate the museum, we retreat back to here."
"That's ingenious," Grabsy admitted, climbing up with Lopez's help. "Oh, except for the part that there's no way they're going to miss this thing, static floor or not, once they come in and really start searching for the terrorists who have disappeared."
I opened my mouth to answer that, but I was drowned out by a loud concussive blast coming from the East Wing. Bits of plaster rained down from the ceiling. "Lopez!" I barked. "Cameras!"
"On it!" he yelped and scurried for the door.
"Chulkos! Let's get 'em!" My shock troops didn't need a translation; they followed me and Grabsy eagerly as we jogged through the halls.
We reached the Gallery of Pre-Mestazi Biology. Dioramas of barbaric Chulkos living in caves were arranged opposite from a display of something large and reptilian lurking in a swamp. Beyond that were a pair of doors. Very bright lights shone around the cracks. I tiptoed up and peeked through. One wall of the room beyond was missing, and blaster-armed police in riot armor were pushing their way into the rubble-strewn museum. Behind them, something that looked like a small tank with a grenade launcher and a repeating blaster rifle was beginning to pick its way over the tumbled brickwork.
"Getting this, Lopez?" I whispered.
"Oh yeah," said my engineer.
"That vehicle," I said. "Too small to hold a pilot. Teleoperated?"
"Oh yeah," repeated Lopez. "I'm all over that."
"Ambush!" I hissed to the others, and Grabsy translated. We scrambled for positions.
A few moments later the doors to the next room sprouted a significant number of holes and fell to pieces. Nobody on the other side was using non-lethal blaster settings. A couple of cops stepped through the doorway. Immediately their attention was drawn to the Chulko holding a blaster. They didn't care that he seemed to be wearing a spotted-fur thong; they shot him full of holes. Chunks of wax went everywhere. My Chulkos, who were hidden amongst various fake rocks and plastic plants, returned fire. The cops fell but others took their places.
Grabsy, who was able to stand very still when he wanted to, did a fine job of impersonating an exotic prehistoric tree. When a knot of policemen sought shelter behind him, he lunged for them. His enormous spiny arms were tremendously strong and pulled police officers limb from limb. I took this opportunity to stand up inside the maw of the prehistoric giant lizard, hinging its skull back as I sprayed blaster fire into the charging police.
The drone tank suddenly lit up its spotlight and turned it into the faces of the cops bringing up the rear. Meanwhile it gimbaled its repeating blaster rifle around and started chewing through the ranks of the police vanguard from behind. Good Old Lopez. Best fifty credits I ever spent.
The floor of the Gallery of Pre-Mestazi Biology was slick with blood – enemy blood, for the most part – before the cops had had enough being kicked around. We retreated out of the East Wing and secured the doors, leaving behind a few grenade booby-traps to slow them down.
"That was therapeutic," said Grabsy, bracing the last set of doors with a bench.
"Yeah," I said, "but now we're in the endgame."
"Uh oh," he said. "The cops are bringing a ram."
We were on the fourth hour of our standoff. After a few initial sorties using firearms, the police finally figured out that their antiquities were fragile. As we weren't fighting back with lethal force, they decided (as Swam1 had predicted) that they would try to take us by brute force. We had done a decent job of holding them off, but everybody knew it couldn't last.
The comm buzzed in my ear. "Jackpot," said Grabsy, "there are snipers on the roof."
"I'm a little busy right now," I grunted.
"Shall I take it upon myself to resolve this little difficulty by any prudent means?"
I had to think about that one. "Uh, sure," I said. "Still no killing, though. Not yet."
Grabsy pondered that one. "Supposing a person were to fall from a great height," he suggested, "and the resulting impact were to kill that person, leaving me blameless."
"Stop splitting needles," I barked.
"Oh, all right," sulked Grabsy and signed off.
The ram began to pound at the door. The door was heavy but it couldn't stand up to that kind of punishment for long. I activated one of my gloves and vibrated a small hole low in the door. Then I dropped a stun grenade through. After a few seconds the door lurched, and there were a handful of wet thuds. We cracked the door and pulled the ram out of the hands of the unconscious policemen. We started receiving incoming fire before we could loot them further, however, so we buttoned the door back together and paused to catch our breaths.
"Not long now," said Lopez.
"Nope," I agreed. "The Man is going to be taking the kid-gloves off any minute now, fragile museum-stuff or no."
"I hope Swam1 is getting good footage of all this," Lopez said. We had patched the exterior security camera feeds over to Swam1, who was busily piping it over the Chulkasai language stations with Chulko anthems playing in the background. Certainly the Mastazi couldn’t allow that kind of cheeky fun to continue for long.
"There are no snipers on the roof," Grabsy reported.
"That's nice," I said. "Did any of them fall to their deaths?"
"The body count would be zero," Grabsy said, "if I could round to the closest ten's place."
"Dammit, Grabsy!"
"Oh, shut the hell up," growled Grabsy. "I'm getting sick of this asinine plan. It's obvious they're going to drop the hammer on us soon and we'll all be dead; we might as well take a few out before we go."
I put a finger over the receiver bud. "Are we ready in the Rotunda?" I asked Lopez.
"We're ready," he said.
"Grabsy," I said sternly, "meet us in the Rotunda."
In the Rotunda, the enormous gleaming statue of Khmamgdan frowned down at us, one claw raised in a salute, or possibly a rude gesture. I had Grabsy, Lopez and any Chulkos I could spare stand in a line.
"Men," I said, pacing before them, "I've never been prouder to serve with a braver group of soldiers."
"Oh for fuck's sake," said Grabsy exasperatedly. I ignored him.
"You have been rock solid in the face of insurmountable odds," I continued. "All of you have shown the guts of champions. Like you, uh, You," I said to one of the Chulkos, thumping him on the chest. I still couldn't tell them apart. It didn't matter; they couldn't understand what I was saying anyway. They didn't care; their God was giving them a pep talk. They grinned like the idiots they were.
I stopped pacing and looked from one face to the next with what I hoped was a steely gaze. "I cannot ask you to keep fighting, however," I said. "If any of you wish to stop now and attempt to escape, you may go with no ill will from me."
"Now we're talking," muttered Grabsy.
"If you brave defenders of Chulko independence wish to leave," I said, "you have only to step forward across this line." I drew a ragged line on the floor with the butt of my cigar.
Grabsy promptly stepped across the line and disappeared through the floor, crying out in surprise before hitting the bottom of the pit with a muffled thud. Sniggering, Lopez turned off the static floor. We peered down at Grabsy, who was fifteen feet down. He glared balefully back up at us. "Somebody's going to die for that," he said calmly.
"Oh, relax, Grabsy," I said. "I just wanted to show you our bolt-hole. Lopez, lower down a centuries-old arras or something to help Grabsy back up. See, when the bad guys finally penetrate the museum, we retreat back to here."
"That's ingenious," Grabsy admitted, climbing up with Lopez's help. "Oh, except for the part that there's no way they're going to miss this thing, static floor or not, once they come in and really start searching for the terrorists who have disappeared."
I opened my mouth to answer that, but I was drowned out by a loud concussive blast coming from the East Wing. Bits of plaster rained down from the ceiling. "Lopez!" I barked. "Cameras!"
"On it!" he yelped and scurried for the door.
"Chulkos! Let's get 'em!" My shock troops didn't need a translation; they followed me and Grabsy eagerly as we jogged through the halls.
We reached the Gallery of Pre-Mestazi Biology. Dioramas of barbaric Chulkos living in caves were arranged opposite from a display of something large and reptilian lurking in a swamp. Beyond that were a pair of doors. Very bright lights shone around the cracks. I tiptoed up and peeked through. One wall of the room beyond was missing, and blaster-armed police in riot armor were pushing their way into the rubble-strewn museum. Behind them, something that looked like a small tank with a grenade launcher and a repeating blaster rifle was beginning to pick its way over the tumbled brickwork.
"Getting this, Lopez?" I whispered.
"Oh yeah," said my engineer.
"That vehicle," I said. "Too small to hold a pilot. Teleoperated?"
"Oh yeah," repeated Lopez. "I'm all over that."
"Ambush!" I hissed to the others, and Grabsy translated. We scrambled for positions.
A few moments later the doors to the next room sprouted a significant number of holes and fell to pieces. Nobody on the other side was using non-lethal blaster settings. A couple of cops stepped through the doorway. Immediately their attention was drawn to the Chulko holding a blaster. They didn't care that he seemed to be wearing a spotted-fur thong; they shot him full of holes. Chunks of wax went everywhere. My Chulkos, who were hidden amongst various fake rocks and plastic plants, returned fire. The cops fell but others took their places.
Grabsy, who was able to stand very still when he wanted to, did a fine job of impersonating an exotic prehistoric tree. When a knot of policemen sought shelter behind him, he lunged for them. His enormous spiny arms were tremendously strong and pulled police officers limb from limb. I took this opportunity to stand up inside the maw of the prehistoric giant lizard, hinging its skull back as I sprayed blaster fire into the charging police.
The drone tank suddenly lit up its spotlight and turned it into the faces of the cops bringing up the rear. Meanwhile it gimbaled its repeating blaster rifle around and started chewing through the ranks of the police vanguard from behind. Good Old Lopez. Best fifty credits I ever spent.
The floor of the Gallery of Pre-Mestazi Biology was slick with blood – enemy blood, for the most part – before the cops had had enough being kicked around. We retreated out of the East Wing and secured the doors, leaving behind a few grenade booby-traps to slow them down.
"That was therapeutic," said Grabsy, bracing the last set of doors with a bench.
"Yeah," I said, "but now we're in the endgame."
