I am Iron Man

by Colin Cook

  With a quick motion the distortion sharply withdrew the saber from the Salarian's chest, causing the rest of the blade to retract into his back and exit out through his

  torso.

  The Salarian wheezed as he pushed himself away from the distortion, weakly spinning around and falling to his knees. With a dead man's defiance in his eyes the agent

  looked into the face of the Asari, holding out a hand to her with one of his three fingers pointed toward the far end of the corridor.

  "RUN!" he barked out, his voice ringing clear despite the pain of his injury. The distortion still standing behind him swung down and grabbed onto one of his head horns,

  arching his head back before bringing the blood-soaked blade under his chin and slitting his throat.

  The speed of the cloaked entity was almost un-natural, being able to complete this instant kill a second before the Asari could even bring up her weapon!

  "NO!" she cried in anger as she pulled the rifle to her shoulder and sighted what she thought was the invisible assassin's head. But before she could pull the trigger, two

  more air-distortions moved out from the shadows on either side of the corridor, both of them coming to a stand at the Salarian killer's flanks.

  "Krenol!" the largest distortion on the left ordered to the others in a rough semi-machine like voice, speaking in some alien language the Asari had never heard before.

  At it's command, the distortion on the right raised a part of its body and aimed it at the Asari, which was soon followed by a bright white light and a growing humming

  noise emanating from it.

  Easily figuring out what the source of the light and noise was, the agent yelled and scrambled out of the way, barely avoiding the destructive white laser-beam that shot

  out of the weapon the distortion had activated, one which impacted into a nearby wall and blew open a moderate sized smoking crater!

  Sprinting down the corridor as fast as she could, the Asari had to awkwardly dash from side to side as the assassin fired its laser weapon twice more after her, this time

  blasting smaller craters into the walls as it narrowed the precision of the weapon.

  The agent's luck quickly ran out though, for the on the third attempt the assassin's blast skimmed over the top of her shoulder, its intense heat and power cooking her

  skin through her armour and sending her spinning sideways to the ground. Baring her teeth to ignore the pain, she quickly rolled out of the fall and dove up from the floor

  into a dark side-passage to get out of the assassin's line of fire.

  Pulling herself into a sitting position with her back leaning against the wall hidden to the shooter, she quickly turned and pointed her rifle-light down the passageway.

  "…Shit," she hissed to herself after giving an exhausted breath. With the illumination from her flashlight she could see that the passageway was sealed off by a closed door,

  one that had a glowing red hologram floating across it showing that it was locked and couldn't be opened without the appropriate code.

  Suddenly the thump of a heavy foot rang faintly off the metal of the corridor's flooring, followed by another and another, showing that one of the cloaked assassins was

  making their way over towards her position. Cringing deeply and baring her teeth again to dispel the sting coming from her fried shoulder/neck muscles, the Asari lifted her

  rifle and started tapping frantically into the holographic interface built into its side, setting the weapon's destructive power to the highest setting it was capable of.

  The footsteps were getting slightly louder, the assassin gliding closer to the passageway with phenomenal speed.

  The agent continued to type away at the rifle's settings, her hands starting to tremble slightly with each passing moment. Breathing deeply to calm her nerves she

  imputed the last code, powering the rifle up to maximum before lifting it next to her head with both hands, preparing herself to spring around the corner and face her

  hunter head on.

  The thumps continued as the assassin drew nearer. The Asari steeled herself, blowing out slow deliberate breaths to calm her rapidly beating heart, casting her narrowed

  eyes over to the corner that was blocking her from the cloaked being's sight.

  With one final breath the agent clenched her jaw tight and lunged around the corner, whipping the rifle up and clamping her finger on the trigger. The gun kicked back

  furiously in her hands, its barrel glowing hot as it spat out a volley of superheated rounds at the figure that had been creeping up on her.

  But shockingly the distortion, which also happened to be the biggest out of the three, had been faster then the Asari had anticipated.

  In the time she had been hearing it move down the corridor it had been able to masterfully come within arm's reach of the corner she'd been hiding behind.

  Now as she jumped out and began shooting with her predicted distance of the target being almost completely off, her thermal rounds missed the giant assassin by an inch

  and allowed it the opportunity it needed to strike the Asari across the chest, knocking her backwards while harshly scraping against her burn injury!

  "Neenak! Yeayah!" it shouted in its synthesized alien voice as whatever melee weapon it was using swiped upward against her body, practically clotheslining her onto her

  back and sending the rifle flying from her grasp down the corridor.

  First disoriented from being struck to the ground, and then going to writhing in agony from the pain in her shoulder, the Asari could only weakly look up at the distortion

  that now loomed over her prostrate form.

  Except it was now no longer a distortion. Apparently a few of the agent's wild rounds had managed to inflict some small amount of damage on whatever this thing was.

  The assassin's cloaking field was flickering in quick intervals all over its body, evidently unable to sustain the distortion that had bended the corridor's red lighting around it.

  After a few quick seconds the device failed completely, the field flickering away with accompanying sparks of blue electricity and revealing the assassin's true form to the

  Asari.

  Some of the agent's weakened strength returned to her in a flash, adrenaline skyrocketing through her system, as did her fear of the terrifying creature that now stood

  before her.

  The assassin was a tall well-muscled Human with tanned skin; at least he appeared to be. Anatomically the figure was male, appearing to be mostly Human but with the

  head of a machine.

  In his right hand he held what appeared to be a long fighting staff stood up vertically at his side, one which was richly detailed with strong cutting designs stretching along

  its entire shaft. The top of the staff was a pointed oval of sorts, looking almost like the closed head of a snake, while the bottom end of the staff flared outward in the

  shape and design of a cobra's hood, fitted with a large purple gem in its center.

  The assassin wore a woven purple shroud around his waist and thighs reaching down to just above his knees, with ornate armoured greaves wrapping around his shins

  and leather footpads covering the bottoms of his naked feet, almost like some weird kind of combat sandals. A long dark green length of cloth hung down over the area

  between his legs, connected to a branching decorated belt that also went around his waist.

  As the Asari's widened eyes began traveling up his body, she started taking in more details of this bizarre creature. The entire center of the assassin's trim torso was

  adorned by a piece of flexible black material, one that covered his stomach and pectoral regions, but not his sides.

  His large arms were mostly bare save for two thick metal bands that circled the middle of his bicep/tricep area, as well as two gauntlets that covered a portion of his

  forearms.

  All of these were just as equally detailed a
s the rest of his outfit, but the gauntlet on his left arm was far more elaborate and covered everything all the way up to his

  elbow. This one seemed to be built from several graceful curving sections, and had many unique figures carved into its sides amongst the rest of the usual crisscrossing

  patterns.

  Along with covering the assassin's entire forearm, the gauntlet also transitioned into a deadly hand/glove weapon, with a curved plate going over the back of his hand and

  connecting to five long sharp metal claws that encased each of his fingers and thumb. A circular blue stone was fitted within the very center of the hand-plate near his

  knuckles.

  Travelling up even further, the Asari saw an armoured collar piece of armour that covered both his shoulders and curved down over the top portion of the black fabric he

  wore on his torso, a collar that was made up of straight evenly spaced lines.

  Finally her eyes settled on the assassin's head, the one that was definitely machine and not Human.

  The creature's head had a forward inclining, very thick two-foot long neck made of dark heavily engraved metal, which leveled the assassin's overall height out at almost

  exactly eight feet tall. Overlapping plates rose up the back of the neck, their edges flaring out slightly on both sides. Two smaller flaps of green fabric hung down loosely

  from behind the jaw of the head, with two strange half-circle flaps fitting snuggly on either side just above those.

  At the moment the assassin had his body slightly turned to the side, his head looking down toward a small smoking device attached to the metal band on his left arm, one

  which was being partially covered by a stream of dark red blood trickling out of a graze wound that one of the Asari's rounds had sliced across his skin. With a low

  mechanized growl after appraising the damage done to his body and cloaking device, the giant creature slowly turned its head back to her, giving the agent a full view of

  the face that adorned the head itself.

  The head seemed even more detailed then the other pieces that covered the assassin's body, if that was possible. It was built from the same dark material as the rest of

  it's armour and was fashioned into the head of an animal, one that the Asari recognized as a creature renowned for roaming the most desolate of places on Earth.

  The assassin's mechanical head was that of a dog, a Jackal to be specific, with sharp evenly spaced ears sticking straight up out of its head, a long mouthless muzzle that

  jutted forth from the face, and two menacing crystal eyes that shone a bright blue against the darkness of the corridor!

  The half-circle flaps behind the Jackal's jaw flared open as the creature's gaze fell upon the agent, its glowing eyes flashing even brighter.

  That was when all reason abandoned the Asari, her unexplainable fear of this demonic creature overriding all of her C-Sec training.

  Franticly and without coordination the agent shoved herself backwards across the floor, scampering away in an awkward crabwalk that resulted in her slipping on her

  hands and heels or falling over herself.

  The giant Jackal humanoid did not give chase; he merely cocked his head to the side, the mechanized canine face betraying no emotion as he watched her attempt to flee

  from him.

  This was all short lived however, for before the retreating Asari could retreat any further a familiar white laser beam shot out from back down the corridor, flashing a safe

  distance past the Jackal assassin and striking the agent directly in the chest under her sternum!

  The beam ripped through her torso and exited out through her back, killing her before she could even scream. Her body crumbled limply onto the floor, her limbs flattening

  out as they lost the strength to support her weight. The beam left behind a faintly smoking hole in her chest about four inches wide, the blue flesh surrounding it being

  instantly cauterized and blackened from the blast's impact along with the armour that had covered it.

  At seeing his target dispatched before his eyes, Anubis (of the original Stargate Movie) angrily spun his torso around to his two companions, the large Jackal headpiece he

  wore turning robotically over his shoulder while his grip on the Ma'Tok staff weapon he held by his side tightened viciously.

  The Asari had been his, his to destroy as he saw fit!

  But in their renowned arrogance, one of the mad dogs that had been sent along with him, one of the ruthless blood crazed fiends molded within the deep scorching

  deserts of Salusa Secundus, had taken the opportunity from him!

  Standing a few yards farther down the corridor behind him were the two other distortions that had aided in the ambush. The one that had just killed the agent was

  deactivating his cloaking device, flashing into existence with his right arm still extended and his smoking weapon still pointed at the Asari's body.

  The weapon in question held by the dark humanoid figure was a small easily concealable Lasgun, one specifically requisitioned for this crusade from the vast stockpiles of

  the House Harkonnen on the spice planet of Arrakis, also known as Dune to the layman.

  If you were able to take your eyes away from the intricately crafted weapon, you would be able to see that the hand holding the laser pistol did indeed belong to one of

  the soldier-fanatics of the former House Corrino…to one of the notorious Sardaukar Terror-Troopers!

  The Sardaukar holding the Lasgun was a large man with broad shoulders, adorned from head to toe in a menacing face-helmet and a sleek black suit of armour that made

  him almost blend in with the corridor's dark surroundings, nearly negating the need for a cloaking device completely. Without a word the Sardaukar backward-spun the

  pistol on his finger and slid it into a nearly invisible holster on his utility belt, one that also held a leather sheath containing a short saber-sword hanging off his opposite hip.

  Anubis turned to face the Trooper fully, the fingers on his left hand tensing slightly and making the sharp claws of his glove-weapon flare outward in a show of force. The

  Jackal-guard's fury had nearly reached the boiling point, making him want nothing more than to strike down the masked assassin for his insolence.

  But before he could do anything, the second distortion calmly walked up beside the silent Terror-Trooper, the very one that was carrying the green blood soaked saber

  that had dispatched the Salarian agent earlier.

  Immediately the distortion's cloaking device shut down and allowed the second Sardaukar to appear out of thin air.

  This third assassin looked identical to the one that had shot the Asari, with the same armour and the same nightmarish mask making up the front of his helmet. At the

  moment he was casually wiping off the blood that covered the blade of his sword with a white cloth, removing the green substance while it was still fresh so that it would

  not stain the blade's silver metal. After doing this the Sardaukar sheathed his saber and neatly folded the blood-damp cloth before placing it in one of the pouches on his

  own belt.

  After casting a short glance down at the body of the Asari and then another directed at Anubis, the Sardaukar lifted both his gloved hands up to his helmet and pressed a

  small button located just under the area where his right ear would be. There was a quick hiss as the helmet disengaged from the rest of the suit before the dark fanatic

  lifted it deliberately from his head.

  The Sardaukar had flaming red hair cut short to his scalp, and a weathered face lined with scars and pot-marks across his cheeks. His eyes whose colour was

  indeterminable in the corridor's deep lighting were hard and unfeeling, even as he looked down upon the Asari's mangled body once again.

  "You let her see you…" the Sardaukar stated coldly in a gravely, faintly wizened voice, as if the vocal cords
in his throat weren't used very often. With a grim expression

  the fanatic turned back to Anubis, staring at him scornfully before giving a small sneer of disgust.

  "You Jackals are becoming more and more reckless with each mission we undertake."

  That comment made the Jackal-guard growl lowly within his headpiece, his left hand flexing widely and baring the glove-weapon's claws in their fiercest show of readiness.

  However the Sardaukar ignored this threat completely, merely holding his helmet within the crook of his arm and marching past the fuming giant unfazed.

  "Bring the bodies, we must leave this place before C-Sec is made aware to our presence," he ordered to his two companions without looking back.

  Anubis watched the Trooper leave with another growl, unable to believe that he was now being given orders by one of these madmen.

  Surely the First Prime to Lord Apophis, the commander and leader of this current raid, would never allow such impudence to slide during one of his operations?

  The thought of the First Prime punishing the red haired Sardaukar when he told him of this incident brought a smug smile to Anubis's concealed face, allowing his rage to

  dissipate into an odd feeling of joy. He had already had to put up with these tiresome fanatics for the better part of a decade, it would make that long annoyance so much

  more worth it to see one of them be made an example of…harshly.

  Turning his body back to the first Sardaukar still standing in front of him, Anubis cocked his mechanized Jackal head and regarded the armoured soldier with a mocking

  query in the language of the Goa'uld, one that was made all the more menacing by the resounding synthetic sound the headpiece gave to his voice.

  The masked Sardaukar stayed silent, cocking his own head before gesturing to the body of the Asari and nodding once, as if saying 'After You' through his movements

  alone.

  The Jackal-guard caught on to this subtle message right away, causing him to give a sneer and spin around before advancing on the dead agent.

  Now was not the time to be engaging in a duel to the death with one of the conquerors of Dune…

  …there would be plenty of opportunities for that after this job was finished.