Deadman - Book 3 Chapter 11: Declaration of War

I crouched at the lead of twenty other deadmen, all of us cloaked in black. We were armed with Cerberus, knives, and surprise. It was the dead of night, and I looked out onto a large facility made up of neat rows of metal warehouses. There were small guard patrols lazily wandering outside, but they clearly weren’t prepared to see any action.

Our intel told us that Matthews, the Cabinet member in charge of science and technology, was inside, and that the facility was a major part of the vaccine development effort. It was deep in the heart of STAR territory, not too far from where the Republic had been located. We’d taken the long way, traveling through dead zones to avoid detection. There were more than a dozen such groups scattered throughout the territory outside of what we considered high value targets.

The leader of those with me, an Undertaker by the name of Zag, looked up at the stars, checking the time, and then looked to me and gave me a nod. I returned it, and started making my way to the other side of the facility. I had been offered the choice to lead, but had decided against it. I had no talent for leading, besides which I didn’t want to be tied to the responsibility. After this strike I had a mission of my own that I didn’t want to risk other deadmen’s lives on.

I reached the other side of the facility and looked back through my binoculars. I saw two large transports, but no other means of escape. My job was to remove those from play and create a distraction for the others. Many of the volunteers hadn’t ever seen combat, and while a few of the braver ones had disagreed with the plan that I be the distraction, I knew this was the best way to accomplish our goal with minimal losses. If it was just me, it would risk too many STAR members escaping, and we needed to ensure we were dealing as much damage as possible to the Remnant’s creation and production of the vaccine.

I moved toward the transports quickly and quietly, easily avoiding the lax patrols. I rolled under one of the cars, and set the timer on one of the bombs I’d gotten from Mercy for five minutes. Then, while keeping count, I rolled under the next one and set it for four and a half minutes. I moved away from the transports, and toward the nearest of the metal warehouses.

There were no windows, so I drew my black laspistol and knife and stood outside the front door. I missed the weight of the sword in my hand for a moment, but didn’t give myself a chance to dwell on it. I pushed the door open and started shooting. This particular warehouse had been a barracks, and as it was the dead of night, they were mostly sleeping. I killed a dozen before they managed to mount any kind of defense. Bleary eyed guards and scientists managed to pull themselves from their bed only for me to melt holes in them, sending them immediately to the floor. One of them managed to leap at me from a top bunk, and was met for his bravery by the sharp end of my knife drawing itself up his stomach.

Some scientists managed to leave the bunker on the other side, and the guards toward the back pulled out pistols and began shooting at me. The bullets bounced off the forcefield created by my shield bracelet, and I responded with lasfire, burning them down before I made my way out of the other side of the bunker. I could hear gunfire on the other side of the facility, and I began to move toward the next nearest bunker, when out of it poured a half dozen guards.

I took a knee and started firing on them, Freezing one before he could raise his rifle, and unloading on the others as I did so. I did my best to be precise. Once we cleared out the personnel, our goal was to secure any information we could on data squares and burn the rest of the facility to the ground. That would be difficult to do if I blew up or melted a hole in any of their equipment. After dropping three of the guards, the rest stumbled back inside for cover. I’d marked them as Under Arrest and so was able to follow their movement as they were highlighted in my vision. I ran after them through the door, rolling as I did so, and rammed my knife into the face of the nearest of them as I stood back up. I held his body aloft by my knife hilt, and moved the body in front of myself as the remaining two guards opened fire. I didn’t need to use the corpse as cover, my shield still had a healthy amount of charge, but it was a habit. I fired my laspistol at one of them, melting a hole through the desk he’d taken cover behind and killing him, then I aimed it at the other, but found it was out of charge.

The guard, thinking he had the drop on me, stood and let out a cry aiming his rifle.

I Froze him, and slid the pistol into its holster, calmly withdrew my knife from the other guard’s skull, walked slowly behind him, and slit his throat. I took a breath and wiped my knife on my sleeve, then drew my new 9mm to replace the empty laspistol.

I grunted. This wasn’t a fight, it was a slaughter. I had no moral qualms about that, I knew what I was doing was for Pott’s, but the lack of challenge made me restless. I made my way through the warehouse toward the other end. This one was relatively empty, seeming to be full of lab equipment rather than personnel. I paused in the middle of it and inhaled deeply through my nose. There was someone in the warehouse. I followed the scent of sweat and fear until I came upon a large desk. I stepped around it to see a young man curled in a ball, shaking with fear. He let out a whimper when I saw him.

“P-Please. I’m just a scientist. Why are you doing this?”

I lifted my 9mm and fired. No reason to let him sit in his fear and distress for any longer than I needed to. I didn’t spare a thought for mercy. This was a problem that needed to be pulled up at the root, and the earth from which it sprouted salted and made barren.

The ground shook and I heard the transports explode followed by screams and an increase in gunfire. I made my way out of the warehouse and toward the increase in sound. Outside of the warehouse I saw a half dozen people in power armor divided between looking at the smoldering remains of the transports, and firing at my fellow deadmen cloaked in night. We hadn’t noticed the armor in our observations over the last day, which meant that their operators hadn’t been wearing them until now.

I watched as one of the armored combatants charged a deadman who had taken cover. The deadman fired on him with his cerberus, but it didn’t slow down the combatant, and he brought a massive hammer down on his head, killing him instantly. I saw some of the other deadmen falter. It seemed that had been our first casualty, and the other power armored figures started to move as well.

I let out a warcry, the red in my vision taking over, and I sheathed my knife and pistol to draw the cerberus, which I fired at the cluster of power armor.

That got their attention. Three of them activated jump packs and ascended into the air, aiming their metal frames to land directly on top of me. Rather than try to dodge, I held my Ground, firing the cerberus at max speed at one of them. I kept the fire concentrated on a single point, and before he reached the ground, the chestplate of the armor had gone molten, and when he did land, he was writhing on the ground clawing at his chest.

The other two tried to land on top of me, slamming their massive hammers onto me, but I rolled, tossing the cerberus to the side before they could reach me. I stood, my hands empty, and felt a smile reach my lips as red darkened my vision even further.

The power armored guards exchanged a glance and charged me at the same time, one of them bringing his hammer in a long downward arc.

I dodged the blow in such a way that he was between myself and his companion, then kicked at the hand holding the hammer. I felt the metal bend and heard bones crack.

He let out a scream and backed away. The other one put his shoulder forward and tried to charge me. I lifted the fallen hammer and slammed it into the top of his head as he charged, caving his helmet into his armor and making his body crumple.

The other one managed to ignore his broken hand long enough to charge me, striking with his good hand.

I dodged him, and grabbed his helmet from the back. I channeled all the heat I’d picked up in the deadzone’s I’d traveled through to reach the facility into my hand.

The man screamed as I melted his helmet onto his head. Then he collapsed dead, leaving me in the midst of three dead in power armor.

I brought my attention back to the other three. Two were down, one collapsing even as I looked to a furious attack from a deadman wielding a thick metal club, and another with a hole through his shoulder from combined cerberus fire.

The last of them was running out of the facility, and I turned to pursue them. They were fast, their power armor allowing them increased speed as well as the ability to run without tiring, but I was faster. When I reached them, I leapt onto their back, and at that moment, they activated their jump pack.

We flew into the air, and then suddenly, we were falling down. My opponent began to turn themselves, trying to angle us in such a way that I would be crushed beneath them, but I let go before we landed, and rolled wildly through the air until I landed, and skipped like a stone.

The power armored figure stood and brought a lasrifle to bear, opening fire on me.

My shield blocked the majority of the shots, but failed shortly after and I found myself riddled with holes, and felt my body go still.

The figure got a bit closer and her faceplate opened up, revealing Matthews, the Secretary of Science and technology.

I kept my eyes open, and didn’t move.

“Log entry. I’ve once again encountered the deadman from before who seemed to have interesting healing properties. It took severe trauma and multiple lasgun shots to kill him. Noting the location for potential body retrieval. We’ll certainly need to send more men here. Oh yes, we have been attacked by deadmen. It’s possible they determined that we were nearing completion of the vaccine. How is unknown.”

As she spoke, she smartly kept the rifle trained on me. I let the heat seep out of me, all the rads I’d stored within myself infusing the air in the immediate area around me. I hadn’t wanted to use it in this way, as the amount I had within myself seemed to affect my healing factor, but Matthews was our main target, and I needed her dead even if I couldn’t have the satisfaction of doing it with my hands. I heard the telltale clicking of a geiger counter come from her.

“What-” She closed her helmet and looked away for a moment. The only moment I needed.

I leapt up and grabbed her rifle, kicking her as I did so to dislodge it from her grip and knocking her to the ground. I tossed it to the side, and leaned down, prying open her faceplate. Once I was done I simply stood over her for a few moments, listening to the increasing sound of her geiger counter.

“Do you think that level of dose is something you can recover from?”

She gritted her teeth, her face pale. “No.”

“It usually takes what? Two weeks to die from radiation poisoning? While your organs melt away and your body breaks down?”

She didn’t answer.

“Don’t worry, I won’t condemn you to a slow death like that. Even if that’s what you planned for Pott’s.” I lifted the lasgun, and fired.