Gun Meister Online: Adult and Uncensored

by Noah Barnett

  "Beautiful scenery, but I suspect this would be an unpleasant place to call home," Monty said over the radio. The heavy gray armor raised a gauntlet over his visor, for a better view, and Monty looked like a hunchback gorilla staring into the sunrise. For once Charlie didn't bother gawking. The remarkable fact he was on Mars, was quelled slightly by the bleak, barren landscape. Arizona came to mind as he swept his eyes over the rocky ridges. His team had landed within a hundred meters of each other, and he picked them out quickly among the armored figures skipping across the Martian soil.

  Jen was carrying her new British FAL with a short padded stock and a four-times scope. Her chest was festooned with magazine pouches and she carried her 9mm USP on a thick thigh holster along with a string of extra grenades.

  Toby’s giant sized Power Armor was already standing next to her. A pack loaded down with eight-thousand rounds took up what little space was left on his back. A metal covered linkage wrapped around his waist bringing ammo, and power to the Gau 19B affixed to his chest armor. The auto-cannon was stabilized via the articulating arm and another pair of cleats on his boots. On his thigh was a holstered Desert Eagle and a few extra magazines.

  Remy was clinging to her MGL grenade launcher as she struggled not to trip again. The only reason she hadn't brought her new flamethrower was the Martian atmosphere. The lack of oxygen would prevent the mixture from igniting, so she’d settled on carrying a hundred or so 40mm grenades. The girl had also found time to attack the drab gray paint job of her armor with a sharpie. Just under the sunken head was a massive leering smile.

  Monty had only his civil war rifle, but he carried it easily. Across his left forearm was a satchel for powder, ball, and primers.

  "Jen and Tobias on point, just like we trained."

  "Remy—"

  "I know, I know—keep up," she interrupted gliding forward.

  "I was going to ask you to spare us any of your jokes today," he replied.

  "Aww, I found a bunch more too." Remy whined. The short armored figure skidded to a halt. Then after a few second asked in a wheedling voice, "Just one?"

  "Only if we get to shoot you—if its bad," Monty said following after.

  After they had spread out slightly, Charlie moved. He lifted one leg against the gel pads and pushed forward. The servos whined, and the power armor lurched across the rocky ground in a floating glide. His cleated boot barely sank into the soil before his momentum carried the suit forward again. The only tricky part at this point was avoiding the boulders. Charlie took up the rear position in a loose star formation.

  "So a priest, a rabbi, and a minister are all sodomizing a little boy when the priest turns to the—"

  "Finish that sentence heathen, and I shall send you straight to hell," Tobias growled over the radio.

  "Aww, that was the punchline. Have you heard that joke too?" Remy asked innocently.

  Everyone groaned, and Tobias began to spin up the auto-cannon, but he didn't turn on the midget. Not yet at least. Around them, other dark gray armored suits skipped across the broken landscape like dark fleas. A few squads were racing each other to be the first inside and were already a half kilometer ahead from the staggered mass of troops.

  "I don't believe for a second we managed to land undetected. Slow, and low—just like we did in training. Jumping to your max height will only silhouette you against the horizon." Charlie warned over the comm.

  Time passed quickly as they bounded toward the Martian outpost. Charlie settled into the rhythm of kicking forward as his cleated boots sank into the red soil. Two kilometers shy of their goal the first lasers began licking out. Unlike the goofy dinosaurs in training the Roth could shoot, and their weapons were also far more effective in the thin atmosphere. By now Charlie's squad was some distance from the lead elements. A red beam cut across a standing boulder Charlie landed next too, and the rock exploded from the heat.

  "Remy, fire smoke grenades at the first line. Everyone else keep a smoke ready." He said bounding forward and joining his squad. They'd paused at the lip of a depression to examine the Roth forces. Two ragged semi-circles had formed short of the massive crater. The glass dome of the alien structure was just visible.

  In the low gravity, Remy overshot the first line of defenders, and the smoke immediately thinned so that everything looked like a morning fog. More and more squads emulated them in blanketing the battlefield with smoke.

  "We dance with the devil today," Charlie said jogging forward.

  "I much prefer filling them with lead," Tobias replied.

  “I danced with a demon once, he was quite good.” Jen admitted.

  “I’ll do more than that if he’s hung enough.” Remy said firing another string of grenades.

  In the thinning fog, long limbed shapes began to resolve themselves. Bullets and lasers filled the air as Charlie ran into the first line of defenders. He pulled the smoke from his vest bandoleer, and the pin automatically flew away. He cocked his arm back and hurled the grenade in a herculean throw. The smoke canister sailed several hundred meters and danced wildly through the air as it activated.

  "Bound in formation," Charlie called, but Jen was already engaging visible targets. She held the butt of her weapon against her suit's chest and fired at something just to their left. Charlie stopped next to her and pushed the sniper onward.

  "Shoot and scoot," he ordered.

  Lasers criss-crossed over the Martian landscape all around them, and it was only thanks to the Heads-Up-Display he kept track of his squad in the chaos. Charlie bounded forward over a group of low boulders. A Roth in green armor was laying against the stones with a hand over its wounded stomach. In its loose grip it held a laser carbine absently while it struggled to plug it's leaking suit. Charlie half skidded to a dusty stop and pointed one of his Tommy guns back at the alien. The weapon—in the near vacuum—was unsatisfying to fire. Through the suit's internals, he could barely hear a soft thump, thump, thump as the machine gun spit death into the creature. Thankfully the rounds had just enough extra velocity to punch through the advanced alien armor.

  The Roth jerked and raised its laser, but Charlie gave the alien fifteen or so rounds just to make sure it was dead. Strictly more than necessary, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He turned and took a few gliding steps before bounding after the squad. In the dust, and smoke all he could make out was their green icons. He kept one weapon trained ahead and the other on a swivel. He crested a low ditch, and found three more green suited aliens were standing within the trench. His suit was still in air, and he aimed down with both guns and fired. The bullets tore into the group, and catapulted him across the gap to the other side. A single laser cut over the back of his legs, but he ignored the sensation of heat and continued forward. The Roth were everywhere, and stopping wasn’t an option.

  "We're almost to the crater, and the smoke is thinning," Jen called over the radio. She and Tobias had paused in a low ditch a hundred meters ahead. The Roth had built their dome inside a giant impact crater. Smoke pooled at the base of the hill, and through the thin mist, he could see a final line of defenders at the top. One or two squads had already tried rushing the mound, and armored suits lay along the sandy slope like forgotten action figures.

  "Wait one," he said switching to the command frequency. "My squad has reached the crater, but we need help pushing inside."

  A female voice replied almost immediately with, "Roger that, Misfit One. Move to waypoint gamma two-two and assault with the gathered forces." A new icon appeared in his vision about two hundred meters to their north.

  "Thanks, ummm… command," he replied and switched back to the squad frequency. "Move north two hundred meters. Squads are gathering for a push."

  The squad bounced through the thin smoke until a cluster of eighteen armored golems came into view. They had killed a group of Roth and were using the bodies as meat shields. It was a good idea to use the armored corpses, and Charlie was annoyed he hadn't thought of it.

  H
is squad fell in behind the Spartan shields as they started to charge the hill. Roth stood from the ridgeline to shoot down at their moving formation, but for once the thin atmosphere worked in their favor. Usually, a near miss from the heavy cannon was enough to cook a man alive. In the vacuum, a thick red beam cut across the corpse shields. The alien armor melted but the Mark-One’s continued to charge. None stopped moving until they'd reached the crest. A laser carbine slashed a long black scar across Charlie’s right arm, but he only noticed it by the slight increase in temperature on his skin.

  The entire alien structure came into view. The dome was about twelve kilometers in diameter and made of segmented glass sections. The inside looked like a glowing cityscape within a crystal snow globe. Bright orange spotlights surrounded the circular base. On the south side, a long tunnel pierced through the crater hill to a spaceport, and just visible were a number of spacecraft sitting on the tarmac.

  Charlie could also see the fighting in its full glory. Along the crater rim, Roth defenders were struggling to fend off the humans attacking from three sides. To the east Chinese forces painted in red poured over the crater edge.

  Tobias stopped next to him. A wild grin was visible on his face through the thickly armored visor. "Hell is not such a bad place to visit. There is beauty to be had, but better still, are the scores of demons to slake the angel's wrath upon." He said through the comm.

  The tri-barrels were already spinning up as he turned to face the rest of the ridgeline. The aliens aimed at them from either direction, but Tobias stood his ground. Golden fire leaped from the weapon and churned through the nearest Roth squad. He held the trigger down sweeping the rain over the defender’s exposed positions. Jen knelt awkwardly and joined Tobias in firing on the flanked Roth.

  With the enemy distracted, player squads took the opportunity to take the hill. Pot marked, and scorched armor rushed the Roth from below. Remy’s small suit skipped past Charlie, and into the crater with Monty just behind. Down below more and more human armor was bounding toward the dome. Only Charlie and his team had stopped to shoot back, but thanks to them more humans were breaching the final defenses. A laser beam splashed over Charlie’s chest armor reminding him that he was a sitting target.

  "Get inside. The Roth will be pulling back, so let's not get shot in the ass."

  Charlie rode a dust cloud down into the crater bottom as he followed Monty's trail. An explosion ahead tore open the side of the dome wall, and the alien atmosphere began to pour out. Remy rushed inside with the others. Charlie took up a position next to the hole, while Monty aimed using a cantilevered rear sight and fired at a distant Roth soldier. Yellow blood sprayed across the soil as the ball tore apart the light alien armor. Three more continued forward, and Charlie leveled both Tommy guns at the oncoming soldiers.

  "Say ‘ello to my little twins," he laughed while unloading on the squad.

  Red dust kicked up from his first few misses, but he tracked the next shots onto his targets. Under cover of Charlie's fire, Jen and Tobias bounded past into the breach. Monty poured powder down the barrel, loaded a ball, and primed the lock. Then he raised the weapon and backed through the hole. Charlie followed in last as other players caught up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Roth Outpost

  Charlie turned and gaped at the view from ground level. Yellow and ocher skyscrapers rose more than two hundred stories to the dome above. Pathways criss-crossed between the mega-structures in a complicated spiderweb, and long-limbed figures were visible running along them to other parts of the city. All the doors and windows were taller than human standard, which made Charlie feel a little small. What really struck him—among the many sights—were the thousands of Roth statues. They lined the avenue and covered the buildings like vicious gargoyles.

  "Prideful and vain creatures—these demons are," Tobias commented dryly.

  "I was going to suggest they have a fondness for art, but by god, I think you are correct. Every one of them is posing with a weapon or trophy in hand." Monty said.

  "Jen, pick a direction and lead the way," Charlie said dropping the empty drum mag. He slid a fresh one from his ammo pouch, then switched weapons and reloaded the second. As he did, Jen's armored figure moved to the next intersection. Tobias slowly jogged down the street while keeping the barrels of his weapon spinning. Remy and Monty were next, while Charlie walked along behind everyone.

  They made it only two blocks into the city before the Roth counter-attacked. Thirty aliens charged them from a side alley. None had combat armor. Instead, they wore drab brown synthetic coveralls and metal grav boots. He hesitated to shoot them because they were a pathetic mob armed with wrenches and alien screwdrivers, but the colonel’s warning had been clear enough. The Roth would gladly pull his entrails out and wear them as a necklace. Charlie leveled the twins and fired into the approaching civilians. The bullets slammed into their unarmored bodies and chewed them apart. Half were already dead by the time the rest of his squad turned toward the enemy. The other half ran. It was the first time he'd seen a Roth not charge to his death, so he let them go. There was probably a million Roth in the city, and Charlie didn't have enough bullets for them all. Ten or twelve bodies littered the road, but he turned to check their surroundings. His eyes never stopped as his attention flicked from one building to the next.

  "Keep moving," Charlie ordered scanning for threats.

  Twice more waves of civilians charged looking for glory, so Charlie took to carrying Elva in his off-hand. The fat .45 acp round was usually enough to put down the unarmored workers. He was edgy and on high alert, so Charlie barely kept from jumping out of his skin as the radio squelched.

  “Misfit One, this is Command,” A sultry female voice said into his ear.

  Charlie took a second to calm his nerves before replying with, “Go ahead.”

  “There is a squad pinned down near your location. They are requesting assistance, please head to point Delta.” She said as a new icon appeared on his radar. A distance marker indicated they were about four blocks away.

  “Roger.”

  He switched back to the squad frequency. “Jen, get moving south. Command says there’s a squad that needs help.”

  The sound of combat was easy to follow. High pitched lasers mixed sporadically with the rattle of heavy weapons fire. Roth soldiers were nearby, and the squad quickly jogged the four blocks to the corner of a bullet-ridden wall. An alien mob converged on the remains of a human squad. Civilians with improvised weapons were pushing toward a cargo transport. A gray armored suit half stepped out of cover and tossed several grenades across the street. They landed among the Roth dregs and exploded turning the air yellow and sending pieces of Roth flying in all directions. From a block down a heavy Roth captain fired his cannon. He indiscriminately cut through a dozen Roth civilians and sliced into the transport. Smaller soldiers moved in during the lull, and began to circle the beleaguered human group.

  Charlie motioned for Tobias. The tank waddled around the corner, and aimed down the street. His cannon whirred to life, and a hail of rounds slammed into the giant red armor. The storm quickly tore apart the captain, and Tobias swept his fire over the crowd. The civilians broke, but the Roth soldiers returned fire. Two pulse beams melted long grooves into his armored suit. Jen half knelt next to the building, took aim with her scoped FAL, and sent a bullet into a soldier’s faceplate. Three remaining players came out of cover, and together they pinned the Roth between them. Charlie did little more than fire Elva a few times as his squad massacred the rest. Yellow blood ran down the street from the pile of bodies left behind. The other squad waved their thanks, and quickly departed the scene.

  “Do you know who that was?” Remy asked.

  “No, they’re wearing armor,” Charlie admitted.

  “They all had emblems on their suits. That was Girls, Inc. They turned me down when I started over. I am going to enjoy needling that bitch of a commander.”

  “Let’s get moving be
fore we end up caught by the Roth,” Charlie said turning away from the bloodbath.

  He quickly became lost in the mega-city as Jen led them deep into the city center. She was almost too good at her job. They switched back and forth down the city streets, so twenty minutes passed before encountering another mob of Roth workers. Charlie didn’t bother shooting them. They rarely attacked anymore, and the few that did were knocked out with an armored fist.

  “I wish I’d brought the ‘Word of God’ with me,” Tobias lamented with a pang.

  Remy picked up a large alien lug wrench and offered it to the crusader. “Your holy weapon, sir,” she crowed over the radio. The giant growled and bounded away from her. She shrugged and tucked the metal club into a slot on her grenade belt.

  "Roth soldiers ahead," Jen whispered into her radio. She stood at the corner of another ocher mega-scraper.