Story: The Great Sagax War
This is... wait for it, wait for it, you'll never guess... this is a Story about The Great Sagax War! Oh. You already knew that? Dang. It was meant to be a big surprise. Never mind.
Chapter 1
A Sagax stalked warily around the abandoned streets of a Verplaatsen city, on their main spaceship. He had only a looted semi-automatic machine gun for company, but he kept it ready to fire. Both in front and behind him were more Sagax troops. There were six altogether.
Suddenly, the one in front writhed in agony. His metal parts began to melt, his flesh burned.
"Gun turret!" a Sagax cried, "Take cover!"
It was too late for the first. He fried body hit the road with a thud.
The five remaining Sagax leaned against the building they had hid behind, breathing hard.
There was a sudden, short scream, which was cut off very abruptly. There were now only four Sagax. There wasn't even a body. A second died in the same way, but this time the other three Sagax saw it disappear into a shower of atoms.
A Verplaatsen was standing about one hundred metres away, an Obliterator Rifle in its hand. A third Sagax was disintegrated before the other two took action. One darted round the building, the other brought his semi-automatic machine gun round to face the Verplaatsen. He fired several times, but the bullets bounced off the nanodiamond armour. He also gave a short scream as he was disintegrated.
The sixth Sagax, in such a panic, had accidentally walked straight into the range of the gun turret. His body writhed in agony, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air, before the screaming stopped and there was a thud.
"Got another six dead rebels," the Verplaatsen reported through a communications piece.
"Disintegrate the bodies, if you haven't done so already."
The link was shut off. The Verplaatsen strode down to where the other two bodies were, the Sagax that had stood in the range of the gun turrets. With two shots, the burnt bodies were gone.
The Verplaatsen walked off, holding his Obliterator ready, on the search for any more rebels in the area.
Chapter 2
With cold satisfaction, the Verplaatsen disintegrated the Sagax. From his vantage point in a vandalised tower, he could see for several hundred metres. Rebels were spread throughout the area, looted guns in hands. There had been a few in the tower before he killed them.
Latro le'Mortifera was a experienced hunter. He'd had many a shot on Ladino, clearing several segments of the ship from pests. But on a craft this size, it was impossible to eliminate them completely.
However, he found hunting Sagax a much more worthwhile job. They tried to fight back, but he was too good. He took another shot; there was an abruptly cut off scream as another Sagax became just a shower of atoms.
There were several cracks, as bullets hit his armour. Latro whirled around to see two Sagax firing out him with stolen semi-automatic machine guns. He took aim at a leisurely speed, and disintegrated them. His armour showed only minor cracks, but he decided to be more careful from onwards.
In the basement of an abandoned house, a group of Sagax were having a meeting.
"There are no Verplaatsen in this zone at current time," one reported.
"Good. We must form a plan against them. What weapons do we have?"
"We have one semi-automatic machine gun each, and we have a flamethrower machine-gun aswell."
"I'll take the flamethrower. Someone can have my gun."
There was a brief squabble, until a Sagax was chosen.
"Right. If the area is clear, we can get out to the next zone without too much diffculty."
"I have a map of the zone marking all gun turrets."
"Good."
"What if Verplaatsen have entered since the last patrol?"
"That's a risk we'll have to take."
Suddenly, there was an explosion. There were several more. Sagax were blown apart, their base torn down. In the smoke and brightness, it was impossible to see. A steel pellet hit the leader in the chest, exploding on impact. A second-in-command happened to see this. He began to shout a warning about the nature of the attack, but was cut of abruptly when a pellet hit him right in the chest, the resulting explosion tearing him apart.
"Rebel base cleared out," a Verplaatsen reported.
"Good," came a voice through the radio. "You are extremely talented, Latro."
Latro stamped into the wreckage. With his Obliterator, he removed some of the rubble, exposing the bodies. He did a quick count.
"There's one less than there should be. Have any other Verplaatsen been in here?"
"No."
"Must've been a gun turret."
He disintegrated the bodies one by one.
Chapter 3
The only survivor of the raid stumbled through the zone, hoping to find more rebels to help him. In his rush to escape, he was foolish. He tripped on a piece of debris, and fell flat on the road, straight into the range of a gun turret. His flesh burned and his metal parts melted, pooling away on the road.
Soon, all that was left of him was a burnt body, missing half of its body parts, lying in a pool of molten metal. A Verplaatsen came past about a minute later, and disintegrated the remains.
Another Sagax base was located near a chamber known to house many Verplaatsen tanks. In the base, a heated discussion was underway.
"The Verplaatsen by far have the advantage in this war. If we could get a tank, we could really turn the tide!"
"Until they used tanks as well!"
"And there are guards around every tank, and some on patrol. We'd never get past them!"
"We might."
"How?"
"I have a looted automatic machine-gun-"
"Lots of us do."
"-and a load of explosive pellets used in an explosive machine-gun. They fit in the normal one too!"
"Perfectly?"
"Almost. But it'll do!"
"Its worth a try," one Sagax admitted. Slowly, enough turned in favour of the proposition for it to be carried out."
"And what do I do?" one asked, who refused to take part.
"You stay here and say I told you so when the plan fails."
Chapter 4
The Sagax had managed to scurry, unnoticed, under one of the tanks. The ladder dangled invitingly not so far ahead of them, but two Verplaatsen guards stood guarding it.
Hidden behind a tank leg, the leader whispered,
"You know what to do."
Several heads nodded back at him. He smiled.
"Go!"
Three Sagax brought their guns to bear, and fired the explosive pellets. The Verplaatsen turned to face them. Aware of the bullets that were being used, they quickly brought up their guns. A well-aimed bullet from one Sagax exploded one Verplaatsen's gun; the other Verplaatsen fired, and the Sagax became nothing more than loose atoms. A second Sagax was disintegrated. The third managed to blow the second Verplaatsen's gun.
However, the first uttered a few words the Sagax could not hear, and pointed his arm straight at him. The Sagax berated himself for being such an idiot, just as several bullets from the gun mounted on the Verplaatsen's forearm smashed into his chest and he dropped, dead, to the ground.
But the distraction had lasted long enough for the other four Sagax to climb on board the tank. It took several long minutes to climb right to the controls of the tank, as it was so large that it was divided into several floors.
When they reached the main control room, two went up further into the top cabin to control the top cannons. When all four were in place, the two Sagax below examined the controls. There were lots of complicated gauges and metres, and several buttons and levers that were a mystery to them. However, they reckoned they could understand and use the tank's basic controls, and set it into motion.
Astonishingly, it actually worked. The massive metal monster rose from a crouch to full height. They had forgotten to pull the ladder in, but from this height it could not be used.
In the top cabin, the largest cannon swivelled round. They had checked, and the cannon was already loaded with four missiles. One of the Sagax took aim at one of the other tanks, and fired. There was a colossal explosion as the side of the target crumpled inwards, and the entire thing was knocked off its feet. With a clang, it took out the legs of second tank, and the two of the fell on top of each other in a tangle of broken metal.
There were small, almost unnoticeable clangs as the Verplaatsen guards fired bullets into the tank's legs. Executing a risky manouevre, the Sagax lifted one of the tank's legs, and swing it towards the Verplaatsen. They were sent flying into another tank, which their bodies hit with a grisly splat, but the tank almost tipped over, and the Sagax decided to stick with using the guns.
However, they would have to be careful. The bullets for the cannons were way too heavy to move, and even the ones for the smaller guns were heavy enough that picking them up would require at least three of them.
As the tank ambled out of the chamber, the Sagax in the top cabin fired more cannons into the other tanks as they exited. Each tank that was hit tumbled into another, and by the time they left, six tanks were lying in heaps of scrap metal. The smaller guns were still loaded and the big cannon had one missile left.
The large cannon on the lower part of the tank was still loaded with a full six missiles, and the smaller guns were also fully-loaded. Once out of the chamber, they launched bullets at the buildings, tearing down even some of the larger stuctures.
Suddenly, there was the horrific sound of tearing metal. Two tanks in pursuit of them had fired their smaller bullets, tearing off the lower segment of one of their back legs. There was no chance of movement now, and the weapons on the front of the tank were useless. Only one cannon could swivel round and fire behind, and that particular one only had one missile left.
There was the sound of breaking glass, and tearing metal. A large missile had torn through the rear of the tank. They would not be safe much longer; the second back leg was torn apart, and though the Sagax distributed the weight as evenly as possible between the four legs, they were slowly tipping backwards.
"Fire! Now!" the Sagax urged.
The cannon fired. The missile ploughed straight through the front of one tank, smashing through the metal layers, tearing off the front weaponry, and damaging the join between a front leg and the main body. That leg slowly began to slip forward, inperceptibly enough that the Verplaatsen captain did not notice, until the tank completely toppled over with a large bang.
However, the other tank was still standing.
"Get down!" the Sagax leader ordered. "Get out of the top cabin!"
They had barely cleared it when a missile smashed it clean off the tank. They were so close that the gust of wind as the missile rushed past through them both against the wall. One of them was unlucky enough to be speared by a piece of shrapnel; the other barely survived, and hurriedly scrambled down further to join the other two.
"We need to get out. The missile's knocked the tank off-balance again; we're falling forwards now, and we don't have back legs to stabilise!"
They had only cleared a few floors, when the tank began to fall noticeably faster. Another missile hit the tank, and the explosion blew open the wall between it and the Sagax. As this happened, the tank finally toppled forwards with a horrid screech. Two Sagax were impaled by the shrapnel from the blast; the other barely crawled from the wreckage. Verplaatsen were already swarming over the area. Painfully slowly, the Sagax sneaked past them all, and back to base, where the other Sagax was still standing.
"I told you so."
Chapter 5
"We're never going to win this war."
"At least I tried!" cried the Sagax that had just escaped from the tank.
"Regardless of whether you tried, you failed!"
"We took out seven tanks!"
"Wow, seven! The Verplaatsen might even notice them among the thousands of others!"
The conversation ended abruptly as a bullet went through the brains of each Sagax. Disintegrator blasts followed, completely destroying the bodies.
"Latro," the voice said through his communicator, "Enough killing. I want hostages now."
Although puzzled by the change of plan, Latro obeyed. He moved out into another zone, and before long, he heard a crack as bullets hit his armour. He saw a Sagax hiding behind a building. Rather than use his Obliterator, he raised his arm and uttered his password.
His aim was true; a bullet tore through the Sagax's underarm. This part of the body was flesh, and the arm flopped uselessly to the Sagax's side, the tendons controlling it having been snapped. Unable to use it, the Sagax dropped the gun. Latro strolled over and picked it up around the midsection, holding it above the ground with little effort, its legs kicking feebly.
Latro then hit the Sagax around the face, hard enough to knock it unconscious but not to kill. He slung it over his shoulder and said into the comms,
"Where do I drop it off?"
The voice listed off various locations on the ship where prisoners were being stored. Latro instantly identified the one nearest to him, and dropped the unconscious Sagax off, picking up another one on the way.
