The Withered Land, THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR

HELL'S AVATAR -- PART FOURTEEN

A fresh wave of flames driven before an invisible wall of force relentlessly rushed forward through the chaotic throng, expending its energy against the damaged walls of the Space Terminal, and a swirling fog of ash and choking smoke deepened over the street.

A three-wheeled mechanized transport cart was loudly knocked front-over-back into the air, broken glass, spinning fragments of metal and corrosive fuel from its ruptured tanks flying through the air, as one of the massive otherworldly creatures knocked the cart aside while swiftly shouldering past it, goaded by the frenzied whipping of the shining being astride its broad back.

One of the thing's flesh-tethered flea-wolves leapt out away from the beast and landed heavily upon a matronly woman who'd been desperately running from out the monster's path. The flea-wolf began savaging her, brutally tearing at her clothing and flesh, with feral abandon. Her already heart-rending screams reached a new level of hysteria.

Mercifully, and tragically, it took only a pair of heartbeats for the screams to stop.

The sound of a quartet of rough percussive coughs was nearly lost in the cacophony. Four smoking comet tails streaked from the mechanical housing of Mune'stahr's shoulder epaulets towards the monster. Smart-targeting grenade cartridges. All four of the explosive projectiles converged on the front of the massive beast's body and impacted in a deafeningly loud flash of orange light...

Meanwhile, Pylott had unleashed a steady stream of fire from her Delta Cannon smart-rifle, the dozen or so shells ripping through the increasingly shrinking distance between her position and that of the creature's with deadly intent, each shell capable of punching a fist-sized hole through a half-foot width of titanium steel...

The creatures screamed, abruptly stopping in their tracks, as the grenades and the heavy caliber bullets struck home. Blue-black blood flew in gouts from their wounds, but Mune'stahr and Pylott could see the wounds immediately begin to stitch back together as the beasts' alien physiology initialized a heightened healing factor. The front ends of the beasts rose high above the ground, their flailing forward hooves punching at the air, as the pain they experienced fought with their conditioning against the control of their alien riders. The flea-wolves on their umbilicals briefly dropped to the ground writhing, reflecting the surprised agony of their main hosts, only to quickly jump back up with renewed ferocity, seeking more victims.

The monsters righted themselves and, invigorated by pain and rage, resumed their charge.

Mune'stahr activated the forward sear-beams in his armor's wrist gauntlets. Pylott lowered the muzzles of her Delta Cannon rifle and did the same. The sizzling beams of irradiated coherent light flicked across the space separating the combatants instantaneously and scored inches-deep smoking, bubbling scars across the tough flesh of the approaching beasts, but the effect served only to induce even more anger and brutish savagery from the massive creatures. Again, their wounds quickly began healing while they watched.

The creatures had been artificially engineered, assuming they weren't so alien as to already be as naturally ruggedized as they appeared to be, for a heightened level of extreme durability, maybe even possessing hybridized biogen-nanotechnology. They'd be vulnerable to a full assault from a fighter craft or from a troop-mover, but not from the lesser firepower contained in mobile battlesuits. They weren't stopping them.

A sudden electronic screech overrode the chaotic noises of battle and a pair of light beams so bright they scarred the retina lanced across the battle zone to burn into one of the mighty beasts. The beams were so dazzlingly luminous they exceeded the definition of whiteness and as they lanced through the air, they each emitted a rippling corona of immeasurable heat. The light rays were dissolving and deconstructing the molecular content of the air itself as they punched into the area behind the insectivorid head of the monster on the right of where Mune'stahr and Pylott's position. The beams were completely unlike the sear-beams from Mune'stahr's combat suit. These scintillating shafts of light did not burn. They disintegrated.