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Subject: STORY: Darkworld Ch 3 (DW,Rifts,Robotech)
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Date: 27 Oct 1994 14:06:18 -0400
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Copyright 1991 Tony Figueroa
                         Tales From the Darkworld
                          Chapter Three Prologue:
                      Man of Darkness? Goal of Light?
                             By Tony Figueroa

    He was garbed in a black hooded-cloak, and he glared across a desolate
landscape.  The wind was still, and no birds could be heard chirping or
singing.  A few hundred yards away, a black basalt tower rose three-hundred
feet above the dead trees.  As Shliff altered his stance, the dry grass
crunched beneath his feet.  Anger welled within him for a moment, but a
sigh was released, letting it collapse and condense into the dull hatred
that it had been before.  He had been coming here once a year for the past
six years to remember his parents on the anniversary of their death.
    The necromancer had never questioned his way of life.  He had simply
followed in his parents footsteps.  At least partially, he had.   They were
now dead, possibly rotting within the walls of the Shadowkeep at the very
moment.  Shliff wanted so very much to waltz through the entrance of the
Shadowkeep, the tower that held his namesake, and destroy whatever had cut
short the lives of his mother and father when he himself was still but an
adolescent.  However, he believed his magic, for all of its might, was
still not as powerful as even one of his parent's had been.  The
necromancer was determined to make his power greater than any other and to
conquer or tear to the ground the keep which was the source of his greatest
fear.
    Turning on his heel, Shliff opened the door the hovercar and seated
himself within.  In but three hours travel time, the landscape became so
much more kinder.  Living trees and grass became more plentiful, and soon a
forest came within sight.  The plains came after that.  And soon, the elven
town of Rilanta arose from the horizon.  It was a very religion-based
community.  Churches of the various beliefs were always within view and
were even now becoming visible.  It was no wonder the elves had fought so
few recorded holy wars.  All of the religions that existed now among them
were facets of one main belief, but Shliff cared little for the elven
religions.  He was human, as had been his parents, and he respected their
belief which was one of the few religions that had survived in coming to
this world.  At least, Shliff acknowledged it more than any other for his
art was far to involved to be concerned with the active worship of deities
and devoting his life to it.  That was a job for clergy.
    Such musings left his mind as he entered the beautifully constructed
town.  Twisting spires and shimmering glass were outlined against the blue
sky, and the streets were crowded with the lower regions of the temples and
those who maintained them.  He brought the hovercar to a halt before the
quite modern building containing the telegate.  Lowering the window,
Shadowkeep brought forth his Military ID and showed it to the operator.
The elf waved him through, and the hovercar rose up and started forward yet
again.  The telegate crackled to life, energy humming within the gateway,
and the hovercar drifted into it.
    Appearing with a flash, Shliff was within the boundaries of the USD.
His home citystate's defensive walls were visible not too far from where he
was which was just leaving the town of Naga.  He couldn't wait to reach
Relo.  He had much to do.
    Upon arriving at the Relo's Wall which towered fifteen-hundred feet
high, he slowed down the hovercar and waited his turn to be identified by
the blue-uniformed Wallguard.  Such was the ordeal to be undergone at each
of the other citystates as well.  The Wallguard's cybernetic CHU system
allowed her to check incomers by aurasight with telepathic confirmation of
any military personnel by Vaaxe, the USD's computer intellgence.  A
Gravalon graviton gun at her belt gave her the power to back-up her
authority.  She waved Shadowkeep's hovercar through.
    Shliff took a right on the road which would've taken him into the city
if his course had remained straight.  Now on base, he parked the vehicle in
its appropiate lot and shut it off.  He made his way into the barracks of
the 51st TDS and proceeded to find his way into the basement by way of the
stairs.  The computer terminals were his destination.
    Once within the terminal room (a term he didn't much care for), Shliff
seated himself and pressed an activating button.  He could've had all he
wanted from the machine much quicker through a cyber-interface socket, but
he wasn't into cybernetics. "Computer, search for outstanding wraith
reports," he told it.  "And I want to know the areas of high wraith
inhabitation.  Give me the information in order of most recent
chronological occurance." The necromancer wanted power, and wraiths were
virtual powerhouses of life energy.  Old ones could could have been saving
it up for who knows how long.  Properly drained, it could add permanently
to his magic strength.
    The first information piece the monitor displayed was fifty years old.
It was about a probable wraithlord.  Interesting, Shliff thought.  He read
the information hungrily.  North of the USD, near Darkwood Forest, a
swirling dimensional vortex had opened up vertically in the sky.  This
violet swirl was most likely around a mile high.  The reporters' footage
was the only source. "Show me the video," Shliff commanded.  A block
appeared in the upper portion of the monitor, displaying the video.
Shadowkeep was amazed the machine actually had it.  From it, a figure in
black armor emerged and left the immediate area on foot for a few hundred
yards before vanishing.  The vortex eventually collapsed, tearing up more
land but not much.  The footage ended there.  Three days later, an army of
wraiths laid siege to a delven city and annihiltaed it.  Here the screen
displayed a seen of carnage.  The armored figure from the vortex approached
the camera and struck in its direction with a black blade.  The video ended
again.  The next day, another town was laid to waste before the USD forces
that had been assembled in response to the previous day's catastrophe could
arrive.  The wraithlord and his army of dead were never heard of again.
    This helps me little, Shliff thought.  I'm not prepared to take on a
wraithlord by any means.  Shadowkeep moved to press a key for the next
piece but decided to ask for a directory of what the computer had found
instead.  He always looked at the first thing it had found before going to
a directory.  Shliff chose a four-hundred year old legend about the White
Wraith.  Supposedly during the self-destructive revolution the Legas
conquering delves underwent, a wraith epidemic broke out and the mindless
dead dragged victims back to the first one that had appeared.  It and the
seemingly unkillable bodies that fed it continued to increase.  Slightly
less than a century ago, a delven explorer had ventured out there to the
ruins of that Legaian city and had reported encountering that exact White
Wraith.  This could be what I'm after, Shliff decided.  If it's true, I
could drain myself the power of centuries.  Even if it's just a pipe dream,
a trip there would definitely be interesting.

                            To Be Continued...

                         TALES FROM THE DARKWORLD
                             By Tony Figueroa
                         Chapter 3: The Wasteland

    "This is your captain speaking, we are now over west Legas, so you may
admire the ruins of a city built by advanced idiots.  Notice the buildings
with the tops blown off that are still taller than any in the USD."
    The air cruiser, Cloud Nine, crept across the sky at 50 MPH as it
passed over the northern tip of the Wasteland.  The 123 people aboard were
not the kind to listen to tales of danger but rather became excited by
thoughts of exploring distant lands.  They had little trouble convincing
their friend, Captain Jess, to take them on a trip.
    "I'll bet you fifty bucks I can build a taller one with toothpicks!"
    "You couldn't even make a square, Ralph!"
    A small green object shot upwards as the ship passed over an enormous
skyscraper.  "There's something on the radar, Captain!"
    "We can outrun it," the captain said as he began accelerating to Mach
1.  Jess got goosebumps as he saw that whatever it was happened to already
be exceeding his velocity.
    Cloud Nine shuddered as a tear that went from top to bottom opened up
on its right side.  "Monster!", some lady screamed as she was sucked into
the rip and killed when jagged pieces of metal entered her from either
side.  She was half in and half out of the craft with her legs blowin' in
the wind.  Eight more passengers were sucked towards their death before the
tear was filled up.
    The green metallic monstrosity had hurtled towards the ship at 700 MPH.
Flame shot out of its lower back as it adjusted its two wings to alter the
fourteen feet of bio-metal that ran from its pointed head to its two clawed
feet.  Slicing downward, a five foot wide circular laser saw had cut
through the air cruiser with no problem.  After the cybernaut had made its
initial attack with the weapon on its right arm, it powered up its left arm
which ended in a plasma cannon.  Examining the wounded prey using a head
that looked like a slice of cake with a glowing red eye on either side, it
struck.
    A plethora of curses erupted at this point as a beam of plasma tore
Captain Jess's ship in half from the bottom up.  Flailing bodies were left
in midair as the rear portion of the air cruiser plumetted into the
streets, however, the front end didn't have far to go as it embedded itself
in the top of an old majestic condom factory that toppled over into the
next one.

                                  -----

    "Isn't 120,000 miles a bit far to go to avenge the deaths of just 123
people?" His own answer would've been no.
    "Would you rather go one mile and look for a new occupation!?"
    "No."
    "Then shut the hell up, Corporal Krine, and pay attention!  Recon has
concluded that these ruins are hostile, so it is your mission to make sure
they won't ever be again.  Do you understand?"
    "Yes, sir!", replied the assembled force of seventy combatants.
    "Now, recon has been unable to determine the condition of the
passengers of Cloud Nine due to the cybernauts, but they are presumed dead.
You are not to go look for any survivors.  Do I make myself clear?"
     "Yes, sir!"
     "Then get ready and be at the hangar in thirty minutes!  Dismissed!"
Captain Carson watched intently as the insolent Corporal with the
reflective sunglasses and short dark hair left.

                                  -----

    The air unit of the 51st TDS arrived in the hangar at 0030.  A Luran
Goliath transport was parked outside.  The behemoth alien anti-gravity ship
was 500' tall and 700' long.  General Cochise himself was present.  "I want
you in your battle armor and vehicle and into the transport within ten
minutes.  At Mach 14, it will take you just over twelve hours to get there,
so you'll definitely have an oppurtunity to get some rest.  Now move out!
Fight the good fight!"
    "And die with the enemy's heart your hand!"
    "I'd rather be back in the Zentraedi Control Zone with my command,"
Krine muttered to himself as he lifted himself up to the Morningstar's
cockpit and dropped into it.  After he had checked the communications net
in his CVR-4 EBA (Enviromental Body/Battle Armor) helmet, Krine lowered the
canopy.  Images flashed onto the inside of the armored canopy providing a
view equal to a window.
    The Morningstar taxied itself up the ramp into the Goliath.  Although
it looked like a chunk of armor with wings, the jet fighter moved smoothly.
A chain gun and gatling gun were mounted in the nose, two small chain guns
were in the vertical tail fin, and both wings were able to hold missiles on
them along with a rocket pod on the wing tip.  The nose and tail horizontal
fins provided stability while an optics pod, the mast sight, gave
extraodinary sensor and targeting abilities to this feared flying weapons
platform.
    When he had parked his fighter, Krine kicked back the seat and was glad
he hadn't taken a copilot who would have used up all the room in the
spacious cockpit.  Corporal Krine closed his eyes and went to sleep, but
the nap would not be a restful one.
    The jungle that was once South America was enshrouded in a haze.
"Davis, keep with us!", Krine shouted.  Afraid of making too much noise,
the private piloting the Gladiator mecha was going too slowly.  A shattered
Zentraedi warship lay ahead.  "I don't want you to disappear like Daishi
Squadron."
    "Sorry, Sergeant."
    Krine's sensors picked up three battlepods in the clearing ahead.   Two
Excalibers and a Gladiator plodded along a previously made path through the
jungle with a Raidar X in the lead.  "Prepare to waste the badguys,
Wasters."
    "Charge!"
    The 600' distance between the opposing forces erupted into flames.
Krine's Raidar X, a walking thirty-five-foot tall sensor array, leveled the
double-barrel laser cannons it had as arms at one of the battlepods.  When
the rapid-fire lasers opened up, sixteen holes appeared in the fifty-foot
battlepod's back as the blasts penetrated.  Excaliber particle-beams flew
through the vegetation tearing the tops off the two-legged weapon pods as
Gladiator missile-racks turned one of the enemy into shrapnel, spraying
flaming metal into the trees.  Separating the giant Zentraedi bodies from
their war machines would have been impossible.
    The Wasters rushed into the clearing and saw a blue pulsating light
emanating from a tear in the warship's hull.  "The radiation is going off
the scale, guys.  I'll check it out you ..."
    "Ahhhhhhhh!!!"  Particle-beams erupted from an Excaliber's cockpit as
eight Zentraedi power armor suits emerged from the jungle with the cannons
on their right shoulders smoking and the chest cannons blazing.
    "Maane!!"  Krine's Raidar X spun around, standing on the rim of the
hull's glowing rip.  His four laser barrels flashing with fury, Krine
screamed, "Kill Them!!!"
    Avenging Maane's death, Merlin thrust his Excaliber's right
particle-beam arm at the power armor's head and let loose a blast that
exited the other side of its helmet.  Davis made a double-fist with his
Gladiator's gigantic hands and clubbed one of Zentraedi suits across its
head and knocked it on its back.
    "Diiieee!!!", Krine screamed as a battlesuit crumpled over with blood
spraying from numerous holes.  The suit's impact cannon had put dents in
the Raidar X's chest.  "You too!", he yelled as a power armor began
charging him while its shoulder cannon started blowing chunks off his chest
armor.  Krine depressed his laser triggers but only hit once with his mecha
shaking from having its radar array blown off from where a head should have
been.  "Fu@*!&^$...!"
    A metal shaft swung from over top the Raidar X and hit it in the chest
toppling it into the battlecruiser.  The mecha fell endlessly into the
blinding swirling blue.  Krine felt maddening pressure in his head; and
then, the glowing clawed hands reached out of the instrument panel...
    "Die!", Krine screamed as he punched the Morningstar's canopy and then
realized where he was.

                                  -----

    "This is your commanding officer, Second Lieutenant Raula Cruze,
speaking to you from nearby. Our ETA is one hour, so wake up!"  The lady
speaking put a CVR-4 helmet over her long violet hair and switched over to
a smaller commvision screen.  "How're ya doing, love?"
    "Oh just fine thank you," Krine said rubbing his right fist that now
had a wounded finger from a wedding ring being slammed into a CV screen.
    "You know it's not too late to switch over to a Skyhunter."
    "I couldn't fly that thing.  It wouldn't feel right, even if it only
looks like Zentraedi female power armor.  Besides, I still have to keep
myself from shooting down my wingmates who use them.  Why don't you use one
if you think they're so great?"
    "I just like my Alpha better than everything else.  You know that."
    "What about your hovertank?"
    "Yeah, I like that better than everything else too."
    "Good luck, dear," Krine sighed.
    "May the force be with you, over and out."  Raula began double-checking
the systems in her VAF-6J Alpha Fighter.  It had been painted the same
color as her red USD uniform by request and upgraded with Darkworld
technology like all other old RDF and REF designs.
    Krine opened his canopy and decided to take a tour of the assembled
fighting force.

                                  -----

    The front end of the Goliath transport unlocked at the top, and the
ramp slammed into the edge of the northern tip of west Legas.  The Goliath
hovered 700' above the Sea of Darkness of which the transport had travelled
100,000 miles over to get there.  "This is Second Lieutenant Raula Cruze.
Attack!"
    A twenty-five foot M-77 Warriord blasted off before Krine.  Then the
six-armed mechadrone launched directly into 300 MPH and accelarating.  A
swarm of fighters and mecha sped from the gaping mouth of the transport and
entered the ruins and airspace above.  Krine's fighter soon joined the
airborne force over the former city.
    The sky instantaneously burst into a blast streaked nightmare.  Over a
hundred fourteen-foot winged cybernauts erupted from the ruins with their
plasma cannons turning the sky into hellfire.  Krine jerked his ship to the
left as a cybernaut flew straight up from where his right wing would have
been above.  He twisted his craft around to face the cybernetic beast as it
slashed his left wing with its laser saw.  The Corporal blasted it with his
chain gun tearing the green monster in two at the chest sending glowing
green blood and streaking red energy into the streets below.  Relieved that
his wing was still intact, he pointed the nose of the Morningstar straight
down into the ruins and increased his speed.  One of the creatures came at
him from behind, exceeding his velocity.  It flew by him slashing his
fuselage with a green biometal wing as Krine blasted it with his aft 20mm
chain guns and then with the gatling gun as the thing passed him.  The
Razorwing exploded, but the Morningstar's visual enhancements filtered the
flash.
    Pulling up, Krine leveled out his fighter before the nose came within a
hundred feet of the pavement.  A mammoth humanoid robot seventy-feet tall
loomed before him and pointed the cannon on its right arm at the
Morningstar.  Corporal Cruze pulled his ship's nose up as fast as he could
and let loose the entire left rocket pod.  The robot fired.  Nineteen
spinner mini-missiles lanced from the rocket pod into the death machine's
chest sending sparks and plates of metal out into the street behind it.  A
large shell sliced through the Morningstar's already damaged left wing,
sending the forty-foot fighter into airborne anarchy.  "Nooooo!!!", Krine
screamed as his wing clattered onto the pavement, and his ship went into a
horizontal spin.  Like a shuriken, the Morningstar slammed into the lower
half of the enormous building at the end of the street and entered the
basement.
    Raula didn't notice the building collapse downwawrd because a nearby
Beta Figther was being cut in two on the first strike of a razorwing laser
saw.  She came up behind the cybernaut in her Alpha's battloid mode and
blew the beast's head off with a burst from her DU-XX Alpha Rifle.  Kicking
an incoming cybernaut in the head, Raula opened fire with her rifle on a
distant razorwing spraying her with its red eye lasers.  After three
seconds of constant fire, the Alpha fell to the right as the jet thruster
in that leg was blown out.  The razorwing was finally cut to ribbons while
Raula adjusted her mecha to being supported by one jet and rapidly lowered
her altitude.
    "I'm still alive!  Iiii'm still alive!  Yess!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Trying to open his eyes, Krine realized they already were.  The panoramic
view usually provided by the canopy was gone, and the cockpit had been
plunged into darkness and silence.  He frantically adjusted his helmet so
he could see and didn't like what he saw.  Besides the power being out,
everything looked alright which meant he couldn't tell where the hell he
was.  "Where the hell am I?"  Krine prepared to open the canopy, the only
alternative to sitting there for a long time.  Grabbing his one-handed
armor-slicing battle-axe and 3WA Railgun SMG Mark K, he opened up the
cockpit and prayed to God.
    It opened with no problem, and Krine could see an old cracked ceiling.
Peering over the cockpit's edge, the ground didn't look too far down, so he
secured his weapons to his sides and jumped down.  The place looked old,
broken down, and was filled with rubble.  The shattered masonry of this
small room hardly looked like the work of a highly advanced people.
Corporal Cruze couldn't see the rear of his jet for it had punched through
a wall, but he didn't care too much about that for the metal lined
passageway before him captured his attention.  Raising his SMG K, Krine
walked forward into the tunnel.  A glowing line ran along the middle of the
passage's top, and its source was obviously behind the metal for whatever
it was glowed through it.  Krine switched off his nightvision and wasn't
surprised that he could still see.  The mystery stuff illuminated the place
quite well.  About fifty feet down the tunnel, it was crossed by another
such passage.  This one wasn't lit and was drowned in darkness and shadows.
Curious, the Corporal switched over to nightvision and saw nothing special
down either end.  And so, he continued along his original course, cursing
about his helmet's commnet apparently being broken.
    Sensing that something wasn't quite right, Krine looked over his left
shoulder and saw the stuff that nightmares are made of.  A black scaly
beast was rising from the shadows on the floor with an evil grin on its
face baring its long fangs.  Krine reached for his SMG K and held down the
trigger as the shadowclaw charged him.  The railgun tore pieces of flesh
and scale from the monster releasing black blood, but that didn't stop it
from slamming into his body armor and knocking him against the wall.  He
opened fire again, and the beast responded by grabbing his arm and flinging
him into the darkened passage, diagonally slamming him against another
wall.  Struggling to retain his senses, Krine spent the last of his clip at
the charging shadowclaw.  His attack hit the seven-foot beast in its bright
red eyes.  The shadowclaw laughed at the pain and tried to use its claws on
its prey but missed and buried its knife-like fingers in the metal passage.
Krine used this oppurtunity to reload and run like the wind.
    A second Goliath transport had just arrived bringing in ground troops.
All of the day's planned bombings had now been completed.  Destroids,
mechadrones, and psi-mecha were all unleashed into the streets.  Raula
Cruze unleashed her right shoulder missile-rack into the air causing
divebombing Razorwings to plumment out of control into
the sides of ancient skyscrapers.  "Krine!  Where the hell are you!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!", she screamed as she tore apart a seventy-foot  Behemoth
cybernaut with her Alpha's rifle.  Picking it up on her sensors, Raula
pointed her left arm to the rear while still firing on the Behemoth with
her right.  A volley of left forearm missiles blew the razorwing to bits.
Its missed blast blew chunks from a nearby building.
    Stumbling, Corporal Krine dashed forward and reached a point where the
passage took a right.  To catch his breath, he leaned against the wall and
watched for any sign that he was being followed.  Once he fully regained
his senses, Krine started to walk deeper into the underground realm of
Legas, gripping his gun tightly.  As he went, the metal lining the walls
and ground deteriorated into scraps embedded in jagged rock.  The ceiling,
however, was mostly still intact.
    "Let me go!  Burn in hell!  Ahhnoooooooooo!", the female voice
ricocheted through the scrap metal cavern.  Krine broke into a run and ran
for the source of the disturbance.  Deep slash marks were on the left wall
up ahead.  When there, he looked to the side without stopping and could see
something through them.  Pointing his railgun in front of him, he halted
abruptly and ran back.  The three marks were only a foot long each, but
what was happening on the other side was clear.  A woman in a jumpsuit was
lying face down bleeding from the head.  Three men and a lady were standing
over her while seemingly holding five others captive, and all mentioned
were dressed in the same style jumpsuit, although one of the men had a hat.
Krine was too shocked to breathe by what he noticed next.  An eight-foot
skeleton was standing by them with its bones glowing bright blue.  The red
in its eyes seemed to burn of hellfire, and the fangs in its maw appeared
to be stained with the blood of many.
    "A fu@*$%# wraith!", Krine screamed to himself.  One of the men prodded
a captive forward, and the skeletal wraith grabbed him by the neck, lifting
his writhing body into the air.  While this happened, Krine kicked the wall
in a futile attempt to break through but then came to his senses and
pointed his gun through the middle slash.  A spike-tipped tounge wrapped
around the corporal's neck; and in response, he grabbed his axe and spun
around.  A small fleshy baseball-shaped creature with three clawed legs
leaped at Krine with its tounge already wrapped about its target's throat.
The corporal dodged the attack and swung his axe cleaving the bugger in
two, but he also backed against the wall.  Crashing through it, he rolled
down to the sanctum's three foot deeper floor and opened fire on the
wraith.  The flechettes bounced off its shoulder and sliced the head off
the man with the hat.  Shouting words Corporal Cruze didn't understand, the
remaining three captors charged him, and the wraith bit into its prey's
head and sucked out the lifeforce.  Mr. Cruze fired off a burst at one of
his assailants cutting him to pieces and fired again at another attacker
killing her the same.  The lady who had been laying on the ground bleeding
opened her eyes and rose while a small fleshy creature scurried across the
ground and implanted itself into the head wound of the wraith's last
victim.  Krine holstered his railgun and pulled his axe; but before he
could reach the final human badguy, his captives pounced him.  The villian
grabbed a prisoner and ripped him in half, causing the other four to
scatter.  Corporal Cruze took a swing at him with his battle-axe, but his
opponent parried, grabbed the axe, and flipped Krine onto his back.
Grinning visciously, the scoundrel lifted the axe and brought it down upon
his fallen foe.  As Krine struggled to rise, a bladed staff flew through
the air and passed through the axeman's chest.  Krine looked to the side
and snatched his weapon.
    A figure cloaked in a night black hooded-robe stood in one of the
sanctum's original three entrances while the wraith grabbed another victim
and drained him of his life's esscence.  The moment the corporal stood up,
he was full nelsoned from behind by the lady who had been bleeding on the
floor.  Gripping the bladed staff, the now second to last victim approached
Krine and swung.  Shreds of armor flew from the CVR-4 and a stream of fire
struck the blade-armed attacker sending him screaming to the ground in
flames.  A blackened lump shot out of his head and splattered on the rock
and metal floor as the robed figure rushed into the room with his hands
smoking.  Corporal Cruze flipped his restrainer in front him, but hesitated
for a split-second before driving his axe into her body.  A barely
noticable blur proppeled itself from her head and out of the room.  The
very last victim lay on the floor unmoving, and the four survivors were on
the other side of the room with Krine and the unknown hooded man between
them and the wraith.  Three exits lay behind the skeletal demon.
    "Who are you?", the corporal asked the approaching figure.
    "An ally... cover me."  With that, the man blitzed the wraith and began
muttering incantations.  Krine wished he had taken that fourwinds training
course; for if he had, he could be holding a two-handed axe in his right
instead of his one-hander.  To make up for this, he lifted his gun and
loaded it.  The monster took a swing that slammed into its foe, but he
proceded undaunted and thrust his hands into the demon's rib cage.  Blue
bolts flew from the wraith's torso, and a glowing radiance flowed from the
monster's body into the arms of its attacker.  Collapsing to the ground,
the giant skeleton shattered into a dull white dust.  An aura of light
surrounding the mystery man quickly dissapated as he walked over to Krine,
saying, "Hi, I'm Shliff of the 51st TDS.  How are you?"
    "Shaken, not stirred."
    "Really?  I'm on vacation.  I take it you're not."
    "I'm with the 51st too.  There's a battle overhead to wipe out the
city.  Do you like it here?"
    Shliff picked up his bloodied staff and thrust it through his back
strap.  "It's alright, but I came here hunting the White Wraith.  It's now
over there in pieces.  I did catch it but the Necromension wouldn't let me
absorb it and so it escaped since I was drained of power in the attempt."
    "I hate it when that happens."
    "Can you guys show us the way out, please?", the survivors interrupted.
    "Follow me," Shliff said, walking out the way he'd come.  The group
followed him into the lighted corridor.
    Krine happened to notice the Cloud Nine emblem on one of their
jumpsuits.  "You guys are the flight crew from Cloud Nine aren't you?", he
asked the lady and three men.
    "What?", one of the men said hsyterically.  He seemed to be short a few
points on the sanity meter.
    "You're the reason I'm here.  If we can survive the battle raging
above, we can all be home by tommorow."
    "But we're not going out there right now, and the fact that it'd be
stupid to go up while there's a war out there is besides my point," Shliff
said.
    "What is your point?", the corporal asked.
    "I'm on vacation, so at least I'm not going back just yet.  Follow me,
I can show you around."
    "But..."
    The lady leaned over to Krine: "What else can we do?"
    "Nothing, I guess."
    "Come along now," the necromancer said, "You may wish to wear a hat or
cover your head around these parts.  I would think that it should really
hurt to have a tettletosnar bore into your brain."
    The blunt comment caused one of the survivors to burst into tears and
depressed the rest of their group.
    "There, there," a small green elf said and then ran away.
    Shliff halted in the passage and turned to face the right wall.  "Acba
Yorum Yin," he spoke, causing a piece of the wall to slide away which
revealed a secret tunnel.  This tunnel was lighted by the same mysterious
ceiling source as the main passage.  Being quite wide, the tunnel allowed
everyone to enter at once.  They reached a door after about fifty feet
which their guide opened by hand.
    The room beyond was large indeed.  It was about fifty feet across and
up.  Filled with artifacts, the place awed its viewers.  "Take whatever you
wish as long as its not from my Backer," Shliff said referring to his small
one-man hovercraft in the corner.
    "This must be an armory," the amazed corporal spoke.
    "So it would seem."  At this point, the flight crew was sorting through
all the artifacts.  One of the men with a messed head of red hair lifted up
a large beam cannon.
    Cradling it in his arms, he said, "I like it."
    "Put on some of that body armor," Shliff advised.  "You just might need
it.  That goes for all a ya."  They took his advice.  Amazingly, the armor
wasn't too hard to get into, however, the suits did have four arms.  A
bright flash of light engulfed the necromancer; and when it was gone, he
was no longer wearing a robe but had on an all black USD uniform.  "Damn, I
hate when a good spell runs out!"  Once finished complaining, he opened up
the Backer and withdrew his enviromental body armor which was also black
but with red trim.  Shliff tossed his staff into the hovercraft before
suiting up.
    "Hey, take a look at this," Krine said to one of the flight crew who
was donning a particularly bulky suit.  Throwing him a small piece of
equipment, he said, "Check it out.  It looks like it'll fit into that large
empty socket on your right arm."
    "You're right."  When plugged in, the stick fit into his hand.  "It's a
trigger!", the wearer said when he flipped the cap on the end.
    "Just don't press it here alright.  By the way, my name is Krine, and
his name is Shliff.  We're with the USD military."
    "Nice to meet you.  I'm Fred."
    "I'm Harry."
    "I'm Uhiuahgiugrehaoirh, but you can call me Ralph."
    "And I'm Sarah," she said, trying to lock her helmet in place.
    "You didn't drive that hovercraft all the way here did you?", Krine
asked.
    "Ha! Yeah right, I paid my way here via Luran teleportation."
    "How much?"
    "Don't ask."
    "Let's go now.  I don't want them to leave me, er, us here when they're
done."
    "Ok, I'll show you the way out, but don't expect me to come with you
just yet.  I prefer instant transportation to twelve hours of boredom."
    "I know what you mean.  Do all a ya wanna go now or wait."
    "Whatever, just do it."
    "I don't see why not."
    "..."
    "OK"
    "Grab on," Shliff said motioning to his hovercraft's sides.  "I'll
drive slow."  The armed tourists stepped up to the craft and held tight.
Corporal Cruze got on last.  Revving up the engine, the Backer drifted
three feet into the air and started forward into a wall.  Before they
crashed, it opened up to reveal a secret corridor which greatly relieved
the hanger-ons.  As the tunnel curved to the left and then to the right,
the passengers successfully avoided falling off the ship which was going
over 30 MPH and now being plunged into darkness as the area of functional
ceiling lights was left behind.  The necromancer stopped the craft
abruptly, causing the tourist with the beam cannon to fall off.
    "Hey, watch it!  I guess this armor wasn't such a bad idea after all.
What's that!"  Pointing ahead into the darkness past the hovercraft
headlights, he stood up making sure he was holding his cannon right.  Fred,
the one with the trigger-armor, jumped off and joined him, and the rest
followed.  Krine was smart enough to switch to his helmet's nightvision,
but the tourists must be given credit for the fact that their armor hadn't
even been intended for human use.  A shape seemed to form in the darkness,
but the corporal saw a beast rising from the ground.  It bled from the
eyesockets but that didn't diminish the eight-foot black-scaled
monstrosity's ability to cause horror.  Raising its head in their
direction, the shadowclaw began running towards them.
    "Fire!", Corporal Cruze yelled, firing a burst from his railgun
sub-machinegun.  A terrifying flash erupted from Harry's weapon as it shot
forth a particle-beam.  The rest of the party opened up with the smaller
handweapons they'd picked up.  Blasts tore scale and flesh from the fiend,
but it simply laughed maniacally as black blood sprayed forth.  Once within
twenty feet, the beast leaped forward with its claws spread wide.  Having
stopped to reload, Ralph wasn't able to dodge the attack, and the claws
sliced at his armor, throwing him back and sending shards of armor
cascading into the dimly lit catacomb.
    "Acba yin cherubot-kyn!", yelled the necromancer, sending a stream of
fire upon the shadowclaw.  Flaming, the shadowclaw stepped back from Ralph
who was bleeding from the armor's slashes.  It then snatched up Harry in
its right claw and drove his helmeted head into a maw of razor fangs.
    "Let him go!", Krine yelled emptying the railgun's clip into the
monster's arm while it crunched harder and harder on the helmet in an
attempt to crack it open.  A sickening laugh echoed throughout the passage
as the shadowclaw opened its mouth, dropped Harry, and noticed its arm had
been blown off.  Grinning like a lunatic, it thrust the remaining arm in
the direction of the wounded Ralph.
    "No!", commanded Fred, seeing his comrade about to die.  When he
pressed the trigger in his armor's right hand, he dropped the gun he was
holding as his armor stiffened.  The suit opened caps on the mounds placed
in its torso, arms, and legs.  Immediately after, flame shot forth from
them as over a hundred small projectiles rocketed for the target creature.
And then, an illuminating blaze ignited onto the shadowclaw, sending pieces
of its body scattering across the ground.  The predator stopped laughing
when it died instantly.  In response, Fred fainted.
    "How bad is it?", Sarah asked Ralph who was incoherent.  Barely
maintaining his balance, Harry walked towards them as he held his head.
    "He'll live," Krine said.  Then, Fred sat up quite suddenly.
    "Where is it?!"
    "You killed it, and everyone else is fine," Sarah replied.
    "Yeeesss!  Now, let's blow this joint!"
    "Get on, people, we're going up."  Shliff reached out and banged the
side of wall with his fist three times.  An overhead hatch opened up.  Once
the rest of the group was hanging on, the craft went up and stopped just
past the hatch.  The hole underneath them closed up.  Leaning out and
banging on the wall again, a hatch ten feet overhead moved aside to reveal
a space just right for the travellers.  Sunlight and sounds of war came
down from the streets above.  As the hovercraft glided upwards, Krine
looked down and saw intricate workings in a space between a bulkhead and
the wall.
    "Shliff, you're coming back this way right?"
    "Yeah."
    "See ya..."  Krine dropped down and fell over with a thud when he hit
the floor.  A driving force ate away at his mind.  "I have to know," he
said, grabbing his axe and swinging it into the bulkhead carving a deep
groove.  "What a wierd feeling," he thought to himself. "I hope this isn't
some goddamned supernatural shi..."  Another blow chopped the bulkhead in
two revealing something unexpected.  Delicate writing was engraved around a
doorway that led into a huge room that appeared to be lighted.  Switching
off his nightvision, he entered.  The room was at least 200 feet wide and
filled with fearsome weapons of ancient wars.  A thirty-seven foot tall
mecha stood before him.
    It looked as if it'd been hammmered out of scrap metal, yet Cruze felt
drawn to it and began climbing the ladder to its head.  It was a fearsome
sight to see close-up.  A huge wedge-like blade that tapered into a point
made up the toe piece for each foot.  The head resembled the dome-shaped
heads of the Zentraedi's masters' bioroids.  Rectangular cannons adorned
each shoulder, and leaf-like shields were mounted on both forearms.  Two
hoses came down from the head's chin and led to its midsection where a
triangular design originated from both of its sides.  The designs ended
with their points touching right under where the tubes were implanted into
the chest.  He noticed a lump on the outer side of the lower left leg but
continued hastliy towards the top.  When he touched a spot on the left of
the head, the side swung open to reveal a cockpit.  Krine felt as if there
was a force guiding him, but he was too overjoyed to care.  "God, I love
you!", he shouted as he climbed inside.  Once he was in the seat, a helmet
came down over all of his head, and machinery enclosed the rest of his body
into a confine that felt like a suit.  The mecha's piloting equipment
pushed Krine into a standing position and filled the HUD with a
representation of what was outside.  He struggled to get out and felt the
war machine mimick his movements and fall over.  Experimenting, Cruze
managed to get the mecha to a standing position.  A lever in the wall next
to a giant door caught the pilot's eye.  Runes on the shoulder cannon's
power backback began to glow with an intense brightness.  When the corporal
had gotten within reach of the lever, he pulled it, causing the door to
slide up.  "This thing had better fight as well as it handles," Krine
thought, "because I'm enjoying myself too much to die.  God, I hope this
thing's armor isn't as bad as it looks."
    An Alpha fighter that had suffered the loss of its left arm and  two
plasma blasts to the chest prowled down a war torn street.  Raula
manuevered her Alpha battloid around a corner and found herself facing a
dead Behemoth cybernaut that'd had nineteen holes drilled through its body.
It stood there unmoving, but Raula barely avoided shooting it.  Spinning
about to face down the other side of the street, she found a functional
Behemoth advancing on her and raising its forearm autocannon.  The four
long range mini-missiles Raula launched from the Alpha's right shoulder
sensor unit rocketed down the street and exploded upon contact with the
cybernaut.  Its limbs were blown from the body, utterly annihilating it.
Backing into the dead end behind the drilled Behemoth Raula examined the
wreckage laying on the pavement and checked her sensor readings for any
nearby enemies.  "No... it can't be.  The rest of it would be here," she
said when she spotted the Morningstar wing just in front of the
seventy-foot cybernaut.  "Air Division is everthing going good?"
    "Roger," many voices said over the Alpha's commwave.  The monitor
showed that the majority of the air division was still up and fighting.
"We can't breach the city's center.  There are just too many fu*&@%+
cybernauts guarding it.  Something we should destroy is probably there."
    General Cochise's voice was heard through the CW next.  "Excellent,
when you've secured the perimeter, I want Ground and Air Division to
converge on the city's nexus."
    "Roger," many more voices said.
    "Krine can you here me?"  Raula advanced through the street that the
blown away Behemoth had come from and turned left when it ended 400' down.
    Having just heard Cochise's orders, Corporal Cruze now heard his wife's
query echo within his mind.  "I can hear you," he replied, wondering how
the communication systems worked.
    Raula heard his response in her head as Krine's mecha stepped onto the
pavement from the lift that had smashed up through the street.  "What?!",
she said, confused by how the response had been recieved.
    "I can hear you.  Is that you, Raula?"
    "Krine?!"
    "Yes, where are you?"
    "Where are you?!"
    "I'm in some ancient mecha I found underground, and it doesn't do stuff
like show me my position.  Don't ask, I'll tell you all about it later. How
are you recieving me?"
    "Telepathically I think."
    "Dear God... I'll see you tonight, Raula.  I've got a mecha to learn
how to pilot.  Love you, over and out.  Hey, you!", Krine shouted to a M-77
Warriord flying overhead.  "Look down!  I'm part of the air division.  My
name's Krine Cruze.  Transmit a visual of me over the CV will ya please.  I
don't want to get shot."
    "What the..."
    "Don't ask, just do it please.  It's a long story."
    "Roger," the lady said as she launched a pair of long range
mini-missiles from the Warriord's long rectangular launcher that'd been
shifted from the back to the shoulder.  Both projectiles hit a Razorwing
and sent it flaming in pieces across the sky.
    "How do I fire?", Corporal Cruze thought to himself.  "I'll blow up
that building ahead and learn."  Trying to find some control, the mecha
copied his movements and looked like it was trying to fend off some swarm
of insects.  When a finger on his right hand caused a click against a
switch, he held it down causing plasma discs to spray from both shouder
guns.  Three buildings collapsed when hit by the erratic spray.  "Alright!"
He discovered another one with his right and held it down as well.  As a
result, the right triangle design swung out to the side revealing missiles
that began to launch.  Krine released the switch quickly when he realized
it was going to launch more missiles the longer and harder he pressed. Five
missiles sped down the street. They then turned and hit the building on the
left, destroying it.  Corporal Cruze fired the plasma weapons at another
building and learned that all he had to do to aim was think.
    Six Razorwings beared down on the mecha whose back was to them, but a
window in the front of Krine's HUD showed what was to his rear.  He turned
the mecha around and fired off seven missiles which easily found their
targets.  Before they were eradicated, the cybernauts managed to fire off a
volley of plasma beams.  Knowing that dodging would be impossible, he
prayed and attempted to parry.  Five beams hit the arm's overlapped
shields, but one hit lower on the torso.  Dark burn marks appeared, but no
real damage was suffered.
    Glad to be alive, Mr. Cruze wondered exactly where he was so he could
reach the downtown objective and really do some damage.  A map of the city
flashed into his mind and provided him with a 'you are here' marker.  An
entire instrument panel worth of information listers scrolled through his
head, but Krine managed to get it under control and maintain paying
attention to what was going on in his HUD.   Without warning, he lost all
the feeling in his arms and legs and gained the sensation that the mecha's
limbs were his own.  The torn apart sensation he was provided with was
maddening; but almost immediately, his torso joined the feeling, leaving
the pilot thinking that somehow he was now the war machine for the moment.
The weapon controls felt as if they were still at his fingertips, and there
now seemed to be more of them on both hands.  It was to insane to
comprehend, so Krine simply accepted his new condition.  Reassured that his
body still existed by the accesibility of the weapon switches, he headed
into the city's heart.
    "General Cochise, we have survivors from Cloud Nine."
    "Explain, Carson."
    "They're safely aboard the air division Goliath.  A Beta picked them
up.  There are four of them, sir.  They're in bad shape, but they'll live.
I think they've salvaged some equipment from down there that will be of
great use to us."
    "Good, I like good news.  Did they do this on their own?"
    "No, sir.  Shliff Shadowkeep of Ground Division led them to safety and
called for the Beta.  He's still down there on vacation.  We were informed
by him that a Morningstar pilot by the name of Krine Cruze was shot down
and helped them.  He's still down there as well."
    "Find them and report their whereabouts to me after the mission,
Carson.  Also, search the city from top to bottom.  I don't want anyone
left behind, dead or alive."
    "Yes, sir!", Captain Carson saluted and left the room.  Cochise resumed
monitoring the battle.
    A Veritech Vindicator stood atop a building in battloid mode, blasting
winged cybernauts with its DU-12 disrupter rifle.  Shattered biometal
rained into the city streets with every disrupter hit.  The pilot swatted
one bogie out of the sky into a tower when the Razorwing attempted use its
laser saw, but that was his last kill.  Raula and three M-90 Roachmill
destroids she'd met up with backed up as the twenty-one ton veritech
slammed into the pavement from 600' up.  It had suffered one too many
plamsa blasts.  The four mecha blasted into an oncoming Razorwing swarm
with their rifles while suffering return fire as one M-90 rescued the
Vindicator pilot and let him climb into the Roachmill cockpit that could
seat two.
    Krine felt naked without a weapon in his hand; and as if it could read
his thoughts, a boxy pistol rose from the lump on the mecha's lower left
leg.  He reached down and pulled it out with his right arm. A barrel
protruded from the end as did a wedge-like shelf over hanging the barrel.
Krine found himself facing a Behemoth when he turned to the left but
continued his charging speed.  When it began firing its right arm
autocannon, he ducked to his right and pulled his pistol's trigger.  The
nozzle recoiled into the red gun, and a loud boom erupted causing rubble to
fall from nearby buildings.  An invisible force slammed a dent halfway
through the cybernaut's body, causing   it to spin into an already
devastated structure while squirting brown fluid like a sprinkler.  As he
neared the city's center, the sky filled with Razorwings, prompting Krine
to hold down the button for his shoulder cannons.  A deluge of cybernauts
fell upon the city streets, jetting out green flourescent liquids as they
spiraled out of control.  After having released the weapon buttons, the
corporal turned a corner and found himself facing an armored hexagonal
tower 400' high.  He had arrived downtown.
    USD Air Division pilots of the 51st TDS engaged in aerial combat
overhead, but the city's central tower was shielded from their observation
and appeared as a common ruin.  "There's nothing special here!  It's just
where all the enemy forces are concentrated," said one high-flying pilot
over the CW.
    "All forces, enact Strategy D3," General Cochise ordered.
    "Roger!", the chorus of voices responded.  Alpha, Beta, Vindicator, and
Skyhunter mecha began accumalating slowly on the battle's perimeter while
Ground Division prevented the winged cybernauts entrance to the long dead
metropolis.
    "Diiiiiieeeee!", Krine screamed as he hammered away at the ancient keep
with his hand cannon.  Stopping his attack momentarily, Corporal Cruze
found correspondingly placed weapon controls on both sides and pressed
them.  Both triangualar launchers swung open and released a volley of the
remaining six missiles.  Its base blew to pieces causing it to fall to the
left and hit an adjacent ruin.  The base slid to the right, dragging the
top down the side of the structure it had hit and lodging it there when the
base was stopped by a domed fortification.  A Shark Spartan holding a sword
in its right arm that hung from the giant missile pod protruding from its
shoulder stepped into view behind the keep, but what got Cruze's attention
was the monstrous creature stepping onto the domed structure from the
hexagonal tower's base.  The Spartan flipped open the circular caps on its
launchers and fired ten multi-warhead reflex missiles from each, and it
blasted the horrific beast with the DU-12 rifle held under its left missile
pod.  When the hundred-foot blast cleared, Krine finally got a good look at
the bipedal forty-foot cybernaut.  Its dragon-like maw was filled with
razor teeth, and irradescent red tubes covered its jet black biometal skin.
Shiny blades extended from the claws of its two arms, and talons slid from
its toes.  Twisting around to face the Spartan, it swung its left arm and
sliced the Shark's torso from its legs.  The sword it used to parry landed
in two.  Cruze fired away with his plasma guns and force cannon, but the
horrendous cybernaut simply turned and charged him.  Opening its mouth
wide, crackling red energy was exposed and propelled at the corporal's
mecha.  Krine dodged the blast, but four blue beams that were fired from
the evil creation's solar plexus dug ravines into the armor of its
challenger.  Inspired by a will not his own, Krine closed the distance and
clashed with his attacker.  The blade on his right foot lit up bright
yellow as he swung it into the cybernaut's body.  He failed to parry its
claw that sliced his chest tubes apart, but his own attack entered its
lower torso and tore it off.  Red glowing gunk dripped from its severed
arteries as it leaped up and kicked Krine in the head.  Corporal Cruze
formed his left hand into a claw which extended sharp ends that shone with
the same yellow fury as his kick.  Slashing downward to the right across
the landing cybernaut, he drove it to the ground and then released the
chunk he'd ripped from its body.  As the insidious monster bit into his
chest, Krine reached behind his back with his left and returned with an
orange and yellow cone-like handgun.  Driving it down into the lower
section of his attacker, he fired, sending radiant tendrils of whiteness
through tubes that covered its body.  Whining in a high-pitched scream, the
cybernaut dragon-thing retreated, slashing its arms in front of itself.
Krine blasted it again but this time with both hand weapons and both
shoulder-mounted blasters.  As each blast hit, Krine yelled a name that
brought him more pain, "Maane!  Davis!  Merlin!"  They all impacted with
the demonic creature as it released another crackling blue blast.
    Thousands of missiles corkscrewed through the air from the mecha
assembled on the battle's perimeter into the mass of Razorwings while those
dogfighting the green hostiles hastily fled the target area at speeds
unmatched by the cybernauts.  The sky turned into fire; and adding to the
terrifying visage was a mushroom cloud that rose from the ruins below.
    Krine gritted his teeth and tried to brace himself when he witnessed
the world before him transform into a raging blue hell.   Propelled
backwards by a massive force, his mecha left the ground. Crying out didn't
stop him from crashing into the skyscraper shown on his rear HUD window.
Layer after layer collapsed against the mecha until it shot out the
opposite side backwards.  With his head throbbing in pain, Cruze saw the
blast before him envelope the building he'd exited.  Continuing his ascent
backwards, another structure was punched through by the corporal's mecha,
but this time it entered 300' up the wall.  The ancient war machine smashed
into and through anther skyscraper, and then another, and then another, and
then crashed through a roof 900' in the sky.  Krine now began a downward
journey into the city.  Few didn't notice the battloid fly from the
metropolis only to fall.
    The corporal tried desperately to catch hold of a ravaged towering
structure, but his hands simply bashed through it due to his speed and
weight.  He closed his eyes and prayed for mercy.  A set of jets swung out
from the lower part of his plasma cannons' power backpack although they
didn't fire.  His mind grasped hold of what his mecha had just done a few
seconds after the fact.  In desperation, he ignited the jets at the same
moment the battloid impacted with the pavement.  Shockwaves rattled his
brains and reflective sunglasses as he jetted down the street, carving a
deep gulley.  Airborne, he met a very hard object while upside down.  The
mecha slid to the ground and toppled over, leaving a deep impression in the
previosly mentioned hard object.  Too exhausted to celebrate being alive,
Krine slipped into unconsciousness.

EPILOGUE:

    With their final vows said, Krine Cruze witnessed the two newlyweds
kiss.  The priestess smiled as the crowd cheered the marriage of the
infamous arena gladiator, Jake the Jackhammer, to his beloved nuker, Carla.
Heavily armed, the two showed no sign of disengaging.  Jake's two best men,
Shliff and Razner, had another piece of cake while Krine fiddled with his
1st Lieutenant bars, trying to imagine what would've happened if someone
had spoken up when the priestess asked for objections.  "I think maybe I
will take one of those Skyhunters next time.  What do you think, dear?"
    "I'll drink to that," exclaimed Raula who already was.

                                  -----

    "Is it ready yet?"
    "Yes, we've been able to get the micro-missile down to one and half
inches.  The Omni Assault Suit will begin production today."
    "Excellent," the portly general commended the man before him while
technicians scurried back and forth, putting the finishing touches on the
particularly bulky prototype body armor.

                                  -----

    "These materials don't show up on any periodic chart," gasped the man
manning the mainframe.  "What have you found?"
    From behind the battered thirty-seven foot battloid came no reply. On a
platform, the examiner was too mesmerized by what he'd found to quickly
reply.  Eyes on the power backpack's runes, Toalen replied, "Its name is
Trasion."  Suddenly, Toalen's face was illuminated by the now shining
runes.
    "What was that?"
    Toalen's eyes glowed an intense yellow, and his arm rended a metal beam
from the platform.  The rage of a thousand years was thirsty.



                                 THE END


Credits:  Taken from the Robotech TV show are: Raidar X, Gladiator,
Excaliber, "Shark" Spartan, battloid, destroid, Alpha Fighter, Beta
Fighter, and Vindicator Fighter.  The Zentraedi and their masters are also
taken from it.  Other credits are: Appleseed by Masamune Shirow and Eclipse
International for the Morningstar and M-77; and Rifts by Palladium Books
for, "Fight the good and die with your enemy's heart in your hand."  The
word "warriord" is from the game Wasteland by Electronic Arts and
Interplay.  The 3WA is an organization from the Dirty Pair by Eclipse.  The
rest of the story is original, and from the Darkworld RPG by me which does
in fact use the Palladium system.

Storyline Sidenotes:
    The hexagonal tower was a command tower for the cities ancient
cybernaut defenders.  Inside was the commanding cybernaut whose broadcasts
were amplified and linked to the other cybernauts by the tower.  After the
inhabitants of the city died, the commanding cybernaut was programmed to
kill any who entered the defeated city in order to give whoever or whatever
attacked a hard time.
    Krine had long been awaiting a well deserved promotion back up to a
position more equal to his own in the RDF which he served until sucked
through a temporal/dimensional rift four centuries into the future.