Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain Read Online Free PDF Page A

hands. The process took longer than I would’ve liked, but it wouldn’t do to be squished by my own exoskeleton.
    The exo dropped me into the pilot’s seat. The dome sealed. There wasn’t any water in the storage tank to make the ride more comfortable, but I had other concerns. An explosion destroyed the lift and when the smoke cleared the assassins were moments away from skewering me.
    I took cover behind a hulking exo. Its armor was just thick enough to provide some protection.
    “Surrender, Mollusk,” said an assassin. “We’ve got you cornered.”
    “I was about to say the same thing.”
    I activated every exoskeleton in the room. They closed in on the enemy. The commandoes fired wildly, and they disabled a few of them. But not all. And the assassins’ screams of terror ended abruptly as the various models sliced, pummeled, and blasted them.
    I grabbed a jetpack attachment off the wall, snapped it into place. Sensor readings indicated that Snarg and Zala were still alive. Three unauthorized life-forms remained. I was more concerned with the attack vehicle hovering outside my home. I flew up the shaft, all the way to the roof, and surveyed the hovercraft.
    The crescent profile, the low hum of its engines, and the gleaming silver and gold chassis all marked it as Atlantese in design. I’d never had any conflict with Atlantis, but I’d gotten my hands on schematics of their warcraft, studied their weaknesses. Just as a precaution.
    A rumbler mounted on its nose had knocked the hole in my wall, but as an antipersonnel weapon, it wasn’t much of a threat. The pilot tried to discourage me with a few hundred rounds of heavy artillery. I flew upward, and the shells exploded around me. A blast from me took out the main gun. He tried the rumbler. It sent spasms through the building. At a high enough setting it could vibrate the Gunslinger apart and melt my boneless body. It would shake my townhouse and the neighborhood to pieces before that.
    I used a trio of well-placed rockets to knock out the craft’s primary and secondary engines, along with the emergency drive. It dropped from the sky. It bounced off the street. Atlantis made a quality product, and though scraped and dented, with smoke coming from its burning engines, it remained intact. An explosion might’ve been more satisfying, but the threat was neutralized.
    For just a moment, I thought about drilling a few additional missiles into the cockpit, but that would’ve been a waste of ammunition. And petty, I suppose.
    By the time I checked on Zala and Snarg, the situation was well in hand. My living room was sliced to pieces, but neither was harmed. Zala didn’t have a scratch on her. Snarg had a few wounds, but nothing significant. The augmented armor of an ultrapede was made of sterner stuff.
    “I kept one alive.” Zala ground her heel into the assassin’s chest. “For questioning.”
    Snarg brought a soldier’s head, dropped it at my feet, and clicked sweetly at me.
    “That’s a good girl.” I patted her on the thorax, took the head. “You can keep this one.”
    I tossed it across the room. She scampered gleefully after it, where she devoured it in loud, crunching bites.
    Zala scowled.
    “I didn’t think you Venusians had such delicate sensibilities,” I said.
    “The dead deserve more dignity than to be fed to your pet.”
    “Hopefully, the dead are past concerns to their dignity.”
    She yanked her prisoner to his feet and pulled off his helmet. He had the slight orange skin and deep green eyes of an Atlantese citizen.
    “I thought you had tamed these Terrans, Mollusk. How is it that they attacked you?”
    “My invasion methods only pacified the Terra Sapiens, the largest portion of their land-dwelling population. Atlantis, the mole people, the sasquatch nations, and other pockets of intelligent Terran life remain unaffected. But I never had any problems with any of them before.”
    Zala shoved the soldier against the wall and