Lethal Asymmetry

The butt of her rifle stoved in the carapace of the last razorworm, and Ash Tairell slumped against the wall behind her, spitting out blood. She looked dispassionately at the remains of the alien monster, segmented like a millipede, but large enough to crush a small car. She shuddered, knowing just how close she’d come to death today. Red lines scored across her stomach, and blood dripped from her right thigh. But the damned thing was dead, and that was all that mattered.

Taking the medkit from her pack, Ash cinched a bandage around her thigh, and rubbed some antiseptic gel against her stomach. The roll wouldn’t have been long enough to go around her that many times anyway, but thankfully the cuts weren’t deep. It was more the fact there were nearly a dozen of them, and they stung like a right bitch under the gel. Looking around it didn’t take her long to establish that she was the last one left, the rest of her unit lying in bloodied heaps or reduced to piles of dismembered limbs. The sounds of battle raged somewhere in the distance, and dust rained from the ceiling as a near miss shook the building. Ash wiped a dirty hand through her tangled hair, then pulled a cigarette from her vest pocket.

She lit up with shaky hands, still coming down from the adrenaline rush of the fight to survive against the Scourge monstrosity in front of her. It didn’t matter if smoking was going to make her sick when she got old—she’d probably never get there anyway. She could only defeat the odds so many times before her number was up. Taking a drag she stood slowly, placing a booted heel against the dead razorworm’s head. There was a satisfying crunch as she put all her weight behind that boot. Definitely dead. She checked the mag in her A-12. Seventeen rounds, and two more mags in reserve. Another eighty rounds. She’d already used her RPG, but there was bound to be at least one left where her squadmates had once been. More mags for the A-12 as well. It was a pity they hadn’t found any warriors—one of them she could have easily overpowered to steal their plasma rifle.

More dust and a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling. The entire block shook, taking a pounding from Scourge artillery emplaced back in the city. She just couldn’t leave the building yet—they’d almost been on top of their objective when the razorworms had attacked. She found more mags next to Hitchins—his stupid damn boots were unmistakeable. An RPG had been thrown through a desk, launcher and all, but it was still serviceable. She collected another matching warhead for the launcher, a minor miracle given the eclectic gear her unit had to work with. Fully stocked, Ash flicked the butt of her cigarette to the floor and ground it out under her good heel.

She heard a groan as she climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. There couldn’t be any razorworms left—they only traveled in threes, and they’d killed three. It had to be something else. Maybe a survivor, but more likely an aged one, driven mad by over a century of Scourge possession. Bringing the stock of her gun to her shoulder, Ash limped up the final flight of stairs, alert for any movement. Another impact shook the building, and there was a loud groan as one of the main structural members gave way, the entire fourth floor tilting a full five degrees to the right. It was getting too dangerous to stay, and Ash was about to leave when she saw the glint of metal under the flickering light.

Wafer thin, and stamped with alphanumeric codes. Access codes. This was what she’d been sent to find. Ash hurried up the stairs and lifted the card from the floor, stuffing it into a vest pocket. Now all she had to do was get the card to Commander Travis and they would have access to the Lincoln city AEGIS ODL. One of them, anyway. With that active, it might even be possible to cleanse the sector of the Scourge. But first she had to get out alive. A groan came from behind her.

Her rifle butt stopped centimetres from Torres’s face. The other resistance fighter stared at her in shock.

“I thought the worms got everyone.”

“Nearly,” Ash didn’t have time for pleasantries, not with the building coming down around them. “The hell were you doing in that fight?”

“Knocked out when they hit the door, got pinned under it.”

“Up,” Ash yanked Torres to his feet. “We need an exit.”

“Radios are jammed, and the Jellies’ HGT got the bus.”

Ash hurried to the window, trying to make out the distance to the next reasonably stable building. Far too far, especially with Scourge forces still roaming the city. Worse was the fading afternoon sunlight. Soon that would mean the jellies’ sight got better, and the vampires would be falling from their roosts across the city. Ash swore, kicking the window. Glass rained from the already weakened pane. Arc caster fire traced a black scar up the side of the building, artificial lightning ripping out great chunks of stone and hurling them to the ground below. Ash ducked back, swearing again, and headed for the stairs.

“Torres, get your shit together and follow me. This place isn’t gonna last much longer.”

“Basement.”

Ash blinked, not quite believing what she was hearing. The basement would be filled with rubble by the time they got there. Before she could protest Torres elaborated on his plan. Old service tunnels, possibly an underground track from when Lincoln had been a thriving city of the Cradle Worlds. But they had to hurry. Ash fell down the last three stairs into the basement level, slamming hard into the wall. She patted her helmet, dazed. Torres pulled her from the ground, both of them staggering into the side tunnel. The doors hadn’t been sealed, and that put Ash on edge. Her rifle scanned through the darkness, tactical light illuminating very little of the tunnel. It was big enough for a bus to go down it—two abreast, even. Twin rails covered the centre of the tunnel.

“Old monorail, I think,” Torres rapped a knuckle against the waist-high track.

Gun up, covering their advance, Ash didn’t bother with a reply. The tunnel was probably empty—occupation patrols would have seen to that early on—and barely patrolled, especially with the battle raging on the surface now. With the radio jammed they had no idea which way that battle might be swinging, and no wish to use a more powerful broadcast that would pinpoint their position for enemy forces. So under the city they walked—or limped, in Ash’s case—making their way to the next usable underground entrance. A smashed, faded sign on the tunnel wall told them they were in section C-17, and that there used to be a phone a hundred metres down the line.

Three hundred metres down the line, past another clearly ruined phone, was a major platform. Sunlight spilled in from the south, reflecting oddly from broken shards of mirror glass covered in decades of dust. Even from the rails Ash could see the shadow on the staircase, carefully hauling herself up onto the platform with both hands. It was a Scourge Stalker, a tank-hunting walker. It was just standing there, waiting in ambush. Until Ash looked further to the left and saw the black puddle oozing behind it.

Crawling slowly up the stairs, Ash motioned for Torres to stay put while she got a better look at the dead walker. Peeking over the top of the stairs she saw dozens of impacts that riddled the walker’s carapace. Torn and twisted, shredded by a hail of fire. The chainguns on a Hellhog had done their work. A series of heavy clinks sounded, and Ash ducked, peering out the space where the station’s doors had been. A scout walker scuttled up the road, pausing to investigate the dead Stalker. A heavy shell ricocheted from the Prowler’s carapace. It turned and scurried along the road at full speed.

Ash crawled over the top of the stairs, and to the right she saw salvation—a parking garage. There were still plenty of vehicles in the structure, and with a little creative tinkering at least one of them could be made to work. Getting out of the city would be the bigger problem, and avoiding the Scourge’s nighttime patrol. She beckoned for Torres to climb the stairs behind her. There was no way of telling how many Jellies might see them. All that was possible was to make a mad dash for the garage, and hope like hell they could get a car working before anything else got close.

“Torres,” Ash hissed to the other resistance fighter. “Get ready to move.”

Standing at the door, Ash took two deep breaths, Torres beside her. One more breath, and they ran. Pain flared in her thigh with every step, but she couldn’t stop. She stumbled on a crack in the pavement and Torres swung her back to her feet. Torres fell, tripped by an old snare, and Ash felt something in her leg pull and snap as she wrenched him back to his feet. She tasted blood as she bit her lip against the scream in her throat. The garage was only feet away.

Torres turned, shoulder plowing through the remains of the plate glass on the doors. Ash followed him in, boots crunching against shattered glass. The stairs weren’t far. Ash climbed one flight then collapsed on the landing, her right leg on fire. She carefully inspected the damage beneath the bandage. Not good, and it was bleeding heavily. She hadn’t yet started feeling faint, but she knew it wouldn’t be long in coming—that was a lot of blood. With Torres’s help she re-packed the bandage, and limped up to the third floor of the garage.

On the third level they saw few cars, but there was something that might be even more useful. Sport bikes. No weapons, of course—at least, not yet—but bikes would be far better for escaping the city than a car. They might actually have a chance. Ash limped over to the purple one—not her preference, but it was the closest. With the multi-tool from her kit she was able to reset the ignition, and the tank still had some gas in it. She turned the ignition and kicked the starter.

The engine coughed and made an atrocious clunk. Torres coughed in the sudden cloud of smoke. Ash stepped back, watching as the battery case melted in the flames. The bike fell, smothering the fire. An acrid smell filled her nostrils and Ash winced, walking back to try and get some clean air at the side of the building. In the distance she could see Travis’s heavy Alexander tank being scooped by a Lifthawk, its engines screaming in protest at the sudden increase in weight. The flak battery on the Lifthawk boomed out as a Corsair made a run overhead.

Plasma seared through the Lifthawk’s port wing, edges of the hole glowing white hot. A flak round tagged the Corsair, the aircraft beginning a slow tumble as its drives sputtered and died. The battle might still be in the balance, but there was no way to tell through the jamming, and with Travis pulling back it seemed like it had now been decided. Ash turned away, wishing corporal Raleigh’s heavy radio hadn’t been eaten by a razorworm—along with the corporal himself.

A loud rumble echoed through the garage, and Torres rode over on an old cruiser bike, A-12 slung across his back. “There’s another one up on the roof, sports model. Left it idling for you.”

Ash climbed into the saddle with Torres, her rifle unslung and aiming past him as they rode together up the side ramp. The bike idling on the roof was a sleek, modern sports bike. Or at least it had been modern a full hundred-and-sixty years prior. That it still worked was a miracle, but not one she was about to question. It was entirely possible there was a local resistance band that raided the garage for parts. There was still so much they didn’t know about Lincoln City.

Bikes screaming down the ramp, Ash and Torres rode out onto the street. Right in front of a Prowler. The Scourge walker turned at the noise, scuttling across the road with disturbing speed, close to catching them both. Looking back, Ash saw the telltale glow of its plasma hose charging up.

“Torres, break!”

Ash split to the left, riding over the pavement in front of an old mall. Torres went right, down a narrow alley. The Prowler fired, a stream of superheated plasma searing a line of glass down the road and blackening rusted out vehicles in its path. The tail of the stream caught the rear tire of Torres’s bike, and Ash heard a muted scream as her bike plowed into the mall, up an escalator, and onto the mezzanine. The engine died, and the silence that followed was too still.

The battle was over.

So were her chances of seeing Torres again. Slowly, carefully, Ash crept to the edge of the mezzanine railing. She looked over.

Right into the optics of the Prowler that had killed Torres.

Ash fired and ran, not caring if she had struck anything. Heat flared across her back and there was the acrid smell of smouldering hair. She ducked and rolled, batting at the singed ends of her hair as a white hot beam scythed through the floor six feet away. Even at that distance she could feel the raw heat of the plasma. Diving into a storeroom, Ash reloaded her weapon and checked her RPG. She was only going to get one shot—at point blank—if she was going to kill the Prowler. Any further and its countermeasures would destroy the rocket in flight.

Patting down her vest, Ash checked what other resources were at her disposal. Multi-tool, not great. Two mags for her sidearm. One MRE. Credit tokens. Smoke grenades—which were useless against the damn thing’s multispectral optics. She’d packed them more to mark targets for artillery support and airstrikes. Still, they might prove useful. A lance of plasma punched through the floor of the storeroom, eight metres away. She frowned—maybe she had managed to damage the Prowler’s optics.

Limping from the storeroom, Ash shouldered her gun, flipping it to burst fire, and advanced slowly to the mezzanine railing. She was face to face with one of the Prowler’s optics, close enough to see her reflection against the baleful red glow from within. The orb made a satisfying squelching sound as five rounds from her gun tore through it, then five more as she half-sprinted on her injured leg to open the distance between her and the Scourge construct. She’d already let her gun fall on its sling, pulling the pin from one of her smoke grenades, tossing it to cover her retreat. A beam of white-hot plasma scorched through the smoke, the mezzanine floor, and the glass skylight before scything around through three storefronts. Ash dived low, the beam missing her by more than a metre.

But it was still hot enough to set her hair smouldering and make the back of her jacket uncomfortably hot. She rose and fired again, trying to aim for one of the Prowler’s vulnerable leg joints. There was a soft ping, and the hiss of pressure falling off, but it didn’t seem to impede the scout walker at all. Cursing, Ash threw her final smoke grenade at the lower floor, and swung from the mezzanine railing, landing hard in a cloud of smoke. Her right leg gave way, and she felt the blood running down the outside, crying out as pain overcame her being.

She could hear the clicking of the Prowler’s legs against the tiled floor of the mall. Of all the places… Ash had time to think before her training took over. Timing was everything. The Prowler was nearly on top of her, its plasma hose dark. It wanted to finish her off up close. She smiled darkly, fumbling around for her RPG. There was no way for the Prowler to see directly underneath itself—instead, she knew, it would pounce. That was when it would be vulnerable. She saw the Prowler’s body drop slightly, legs shifting apart and seeming to shrink. Ash swept the RPG out from behind her.

The Prowler leapt, plasma hose glowing.

Ash fired.

Plasma seared the side of her leg as the backblast from the RPG deafened her and kicked debris into the side of her head. The RPG slammed into the underside of the scout walker. Ash screamed in pain as her body finally tallied all the damage it had received. The RPG detonated, copper jacket extruded into a plasma jet by the shaped charge in the warhead. Ash could feel herself slipping from consciousness. The plasma jet tore through the carapace of the Prowler, superheated the nutrient fluid inside, and exploded out the walker’s upper carapace, sowing shrapnel in all directions. Darkness filled the mall as the Prowler fell, toppling with a heavy thud, landing just centimetres from Ash’s feet. Ash passed out, spent launcher falling from numb hands.

Silence once more reigned the outskirts of Lincoln City.

Very gripping. Good job!

Cheers, Thunder

Very, very nice! I enjoyed reading that!

Very gripping. Good job!

Cheers, Thunder

Very, very nice! I enjoyed reading that!

I'm glad you guys liked it. I wrote this in what I would consider my 'standard' style, (which I use on FF.net). It's longer than the pieces in my story thread, and I hope, punchier too. Writing, rather than painting or playing the game, is one of the few things I'm really good at. DzC has a great universe to explore, and I'm really looking forward to DropFleet and being able to make some engagement stories for that (I used to do narrative style BatReps for Firestorm: Armada back when that was in first edition).

Great work man! I love the atmosphere that you created in this mall, and it's a very fluid writing style. I'll be checking out your other work soon!

Really good.

Ash came to slowly, her vision fogging into darkness, and pain gnawing at her leg and the side of her skull. Something smelled like burnt barbecue meat. A flash of memory, the Prowler, its plasma hose searing the side of her leg. The stars above her swam in unfamiliar constellations. She groaned, rolling to her left, sitting slowly. The ruins of the Scourge scout walker lay less than a metre away. She looked up again. Even through the cracked and broken glass of the skylight she could tell the stars were wrong. Something flickered and ghosted past them. She shivered, clutching her gun tight.

Vampires.

Not the half-human hybrids of legend. No, those were tame compared to what the Scourge could do. A Jelly, taking over the mind and body of a giant bat-like creature, gaping maw, fangs, long distance gliding—and plasma cutters that could rip through the plating on any Resistance air vehicle. And at night, those monsters ruled the city… they got to feed. Ash blinked in the darkness, wishing the twin moons were higher so she could see anything. Waiting around in the ruins of the mall was a very bad idea.

Carefully, heavily favouring her injured leg, she rose. Patting down her vest and other pockets she found three flares, and her flashlight. She could hardly stand, and after swaying for a moment she fell to her knees, a dagger of pain shooting through her right leg. She still had to get out of the mall somehow, avoiding the Vampires and anything else that might be lurking in the streets. Slinging her rifle across her back, she scrabbled in the darkness for the empty launcher for her RPG. It would be just long enough to serve as very uncomfortable crutch.

She was supposed to have a second round for that RPG. Still on her hands and knees she scrabbled around in the darkness again, trying to find it. Her left hand pressed against something metallic, and roughly the right shape. Even in the moonlight she could tell it was useless. It must have been damaged when the Prowler was chasing her along the mezzanine. Half the casing had melted, and the warhead’s explosive had burnt up from the plasma blasts. Ash felt across her back—the plate there was deformed, but it hadn’t been breached. She grimaced, picking up the launcher tube to use as a crutch.

It was very, very uncomfortable, just as she’d thought. Ash limped and staggered towards what might have been a freight elevator. She kept her light shaded with a torn strip of her uniform, just enough light that she could see anything she might trip on. It would be no use to try the elevator—instead, she found the stairwell next to it. It went both up and down. Every Resistance fighter knew down was safe. Down she went, the stairs opening onto an underground parking garage, the other surface access points seemingly caved in. The stairs went down further.

Two basement levels later Ash slumped down against the wall next to the stairs, ripping open an MRE. Food and water were vital, especially with the amount of blood she’d lost and the wounds she’d suffered. She was out of almost everything in her medkit, but she knew most common infections wouldn’t immediately put her out of action, and that if she could somehow reach the tunnel network to Travis’s base, she’d be able to get antibiotics.

Big if.

She wasn’t even sure if there was another exit from the lowest parking level, in which she was now enjoying a meal of dubious merit in torchlight of dubious quality. A horrifyingly familiar click-scritch sounded close by. Worm nest? she frowned. The sound had happened only once, not in the usual staccato pattern of Razorworm movement. There was a glint of something scurrying away. A tiny shadow. Another scritch-scritch and a crinkling noise her MRE wrapper was dragged into the wall by a rat. She admired the rodent’s audacity. In a way it reminded her of their mission—to snatch the codes for an ODL right out from under the Scourge’s nose.

Feeling somewhat safer this deep underground, Ash picked up her light and began carefully exploring the entire structure around her, every wall, every pillar, every old hatch. Any sign that there might be a local Resistance force, and that they might be friendly. Or, if any gods out there still answered prayers, a link somewhere to the underground monorail she and Torres had discovered. There was nothing. At least, nothing a person could fit through. The she remembered the elevator. The doors had been closed.

She felt the tripwire in front of the doors. Scourge didn’t set traps. Not like that. She traced the wire from side to side, found it attached to nothing, but felt the slight tension on it as she twanged it next to each wall. It was holding something heavy. Maybe the elevator car itself, maybe a big pile of scrap—but whatever it was, it would crush any invader, and seal any lower entrance. She managed to open the elevator doors without setting off the tripwire. She shone her torch up and down the shaft. Big enough for a few men, at least. Maybe even an ATV if there was a lifting platform below.

There was some rope in her kit, and she laid it out carefully in front of the elevator doors. No obvious damage, and long enough to reach the bottom of the shaft—assuming it wasn’t more than three levels down. Two climbing hooks of dubious quality, a heavy karabiner, and a simple rope slide/arrestor. Not the ideal kit to descend a shaft of unknown height into possibly hostile territory. She took another, rather more careful look at the elevator shaft. Above the door was a rappelling point, hidden behind a girder. Several points, in fact, well worn down to base metal.

One hand on the rope slide, the other holding her rifle, Ash began her descent. Painful every time she had to use her right leg, but thankfully not crippling. Whispered voices carried up the shaft to her. No words that she could make out, but they seemed agitated by something. The group that had booby-trapped the elevator shaft? Ash frowned, descending further. She was now two levels below the open doors. One more and she was going to run out of rope.

A loud report echoed through the shaft, and there was a heavy grinding noise as the next set of doors below her began to open. Ash hurriedly flicked off her light, holding her breath as something was swung into the shaft and pitched over. They weren’t making any attempt at stealth, and that was always a bad sign. One of them looked up, and Ash tried to flatten herself against the doors on her level, hoping that the angle was enough that the men below couldn’t see her.

“Fucking Patel, I bet you,” one voice grumbled.

“Patel ever leave his rope behind?” The second voice held a note of vague recognition.

Shit. Ash slipped the arrestor on her rope, flicking her light back on as she sailed down the shaft. Both men had sidearms drawn, but their fingers were against the slides, not the triggers. One of the men was shaved bald, the other had shaggy hair covering everything save for a scar where his left ear had been. Both men were also wearing old, much abused, and heavily mended EAA uniforms.

“Girl, you look like shit,” Baldy spoke, lowering his weapon and offering Ash his left arm.

“Roland…” the other man’s voice held a warning note.

“She’s fucked up, but she ain’t one of them fucking cannibals, alright?”

“Fuck it,” Ash sighed, lowering her gun and letting the bald one—Roland—pull her in through the door. “I don’t care. You’re human.”

“Good answer,” Roland patted her on the back. “Can you walk?”

“Got here, didn’t I?”

“Sense of humour, Roland—I think you two’ll make a cute couple.”

“Screw you too, Warwick. Find the goddamn door panel and close ‘em.”

Ash limped slowly down the corridor, escorted by Roland. It had once been another parking level, but something had obviously closed it off from above, probably quite deliberately. The walls were made of old chipboard, car door panels, and anything else that could be nailed or wired to a simple frame. There was also the pervasive hum of a high powered generator somewhere nearby, possibly down another level. The corridor branched out, and Roland led her to a room with several beds—made up from old car seats or bumpers wrapped with fabric—and two people wearing white coats. At least, the coats had been white many, many years ago. Even so, Ash recognised a field hospital when she saw one.

“How long have you been down here?”

“Twenty years, give or take. It’s almost like the Jellies just gave up on this place.”

“We were fighting on the surface six hours ago. Jellies everywhere.”

“That’s bad news,” Roland changed his tone, extending his hand. “Roland Sykes, Mallrat Military.”

Ash shook his hand, grimacing at a sudden spike of pain in her leg. “Ash Tairell, Southdown Veterans.”

“Hell, girl, you are a long way from home. So, what brings you to Lincoln City’s finest establishment of used Jelly parts?”

“This,” Ash patted her pocket, drawing out the card with the ODL codes on it. “ODL access codes.”

The surprise in the room was palpable. Everyone was looking at her. Roland, the doctors, even the other patients—those that could move.

“We’ve been trying for years to find viable codes, stamped like that.”

“The Jellies knew about them,” Ash sat heavily in one of the chairs lining the wall. “Razorworms in every building, just as we reached the top floors.” Ash lifted her top, showing off the cuts across her stomach. “Bastards gave me these. I was the only one left… I found Torres, one of our other fighters, we found bikes in garage—“

“One of them purple?”

“It was.”

“Damn. Knew it didn’t have long left. Sorry, go on.”

“We got ambushed by a Prowler and split up. It chased Torres, then came back for me. Still had an RPG round and some smoke grenades. It’s lying on the ground floor of the mall, oozing tar.”

“Could use a soldier like you, Ash.”

“If I live it out… I know I’ve lost a lot of blood, and the burn on my leg’s probably infected.”

“Grab one of the free beds then. Our doctors are pretty good—they’ve even reattached fingers.”

“Okay, that’s just showing off.”

Lifting herself carefully out of the chair, Ash limped over to a free bed, batting away Roland’s hands when he tried to help her. She lay back, head against the lumpy pillow, and closed her eyes. It was probably okay to pass out at this point. A sharp slap brought her round. A stern looking woman with her greying hair in a braid was looking down at her over the edge of a much abused clipboard.

“We’ll check your injuries first, then you can sleep.”

“Fine, cut, burned, possibly sprained or broken leg. Cuts on my stomach. Dirt and launch debris plastered to the side of my head. Happy?”

“No.” And Ash was then forced to endure fifteen endless minutes of painful prodding and obtuse or just plain stupid questions. It didn’t seem to matter, the doctor was going to get the information anyway. Ash winced and pulled away as the doctor pulled something from the side of her face. She turned to look at the woman. The doctor was holding what looked like a piece of fuse wire covered in blood. “Just hold still, the rest of the shrapnel is a lot smaller.”

Ash winced and grimaced, but didn’t make a sound while the doctor removed the rest of the shrapnel. She frowned up at the older woman. “Can I sleep now?”

“Five minutes, I need to set up a transfusion for you—like you said, you have lost a lot of blood, and I’m surprised you haven’t crashed.”

“Aww, she cares about you,” Roland whispered into Ash’s uninjured ear.

“What are you even still doing here?”

“Gotta watch you ’til the boss gets back. You’re not a cannibal like the other crazies round here, but doesn’t mean we trust you either. Top entrance isn’t meant to be found, after all.”

Ash rolled her eyes, wincing as she rolled to the wrong side, her face and leg on fire. I’m an idiot. Rolling the other way she found Roland grinning at her as the doctor plunged the needle into her wrist. She turned to look at the doctor.

“Some bedside manner.”

“Hey, look, she likes you too, Kat.”

“I can sleep now, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. At least I don’t have to listen to him anymore.”

“Yeah,” Kat laughed softly. “He has that effect on everyone.”

Fantastic story.

A really good read. Love the character building and your scene depiction.

Cant wait for more.

Realt nice touch with the fingers and the guarding!
Great read again.
Cheers, Thunder

Fantastic.