Invasion Wars 1: Crimes of War by Ray O'Neil Page A

behind it. Grabbing the headless body with its other hand, the Wotan tossed it at Jackson with enough strength to send the lifeless corpse flying. Getting one shot off, Jackson was knocked off his feet before he knew what hit him. He missed completely, having the weight of his teammate take him all the way to the wall on the other side of the open room behind him; his back-propellers dug into the drywall. Pinned down by the Exoframe on his lap, he coughed up blood, his visor smeared with it from the inside.
    “Mitchell… it’s coming for you…” he coughed again, the pain in his chest making him hiss. “Get out of there!”
    He felt the tower shaking as if it was about to crumble down. There was nowhere he could go. Mitchell took cover behind the big bell, his gun aimed at the entrance. Once he saw movement, he fired, yelling at the top of his lungs. He wasn’t willing to go down without a fight.
    Bullets blasted through the wall behind the Niflheim, any that hit their target only making it flinch from one hitting it in one of its triangular eyes. After emptying his entire magazine, the Wotan was still standing, some of its spikes broken off from the hail of gunfire. Still dripping with blood, it roared at him, baring its mouth full of overgrown and crystillian teeth. With a running swing of its powerful arm, the bell flew off of its support beams, rolling its way out of the tower. Mitchell dodged back, flipping out of the tower with the bell.
    Without even thinking, his hand caught onto the ruined ledge, his body slamming against the tower’s side. Far down below, the bell crashed into the street, smashing a wrecked car. His gun also fell, leaving him without a weapon to fight back. The Wotan’s steps nearly shook his grip loose, Mitchell grabbing on with his other hand to avoid plummeting to his death. The creature’s reptilian head poked out of the tower’s edge, bent bullets falling loose from the small cracks in its scaly skin.
     
    Seeing his squad leader in trouble through his scope, Hauser stood up and quickly got out his ziphook. The hook fired off towards the tower, its handle being planted onto the edge of the building he was on. With a running start, Hauser leaped off the ledge, zip-roller in hand. Its magnets connected with the metal cable, turning on to shoot the marine towards the other end. While he flew across the street, he switched his gun to anti-tank mode. The barrel’s suppressor extended out and reconstructed itself to have the barrel longer, the gun’s computer allowing the ammunition to fire at max strength.
    The Niflheim raised a hand up high, but was knocked to the side in an instant. Hauser’s legs plowed the alien with enough force to send it across the room, sliding on the floor. Entering a free fall, the both of them headed straight down off of the tower. Hauser fired his rifle in mid air, blasting its teeth right off of its face has he rode the Wotan through the roof. The ceiling caved in, filling the room with planks of wood and crushed tiles.
    Covered in wreckage, the Niflheim laid on its back, panting loudly. It was dazed, but not dead. Hauser got up uneasily, pushing himself up to finish the job. He hasn’t let a Niflheim get past him alive and he wasn’t planning to do that today. The pain in his legs wore off, his slight limp going away.
    A steel rod was in his arm, pierced right through his bicep. Taking a second to pull it out, he fought through the pain, tossing the clean rod aside. Huffing as he picked up his rifle, the wound in his arm healed over, the hole slowly closing up as he made his way around the pile of rubble. The ruined planks stirred, the Niflheim moving to get itself out of the broken roofing that held it down. Stomping down on its head, Hauser put all of his weight down to keep it down.
    Sticking the extended barrel of his Elk straight into the alien’s wide mouth, he was able to push it all the way down now that it had most of its teeth missing. A shot