Vultures in Hades: Chapter Six.

[Bad Luck Ranger]

I'm not sure whether or not to continue this story as interest isn't exactly sky rocketing. I probably will just finish it in vain hope that later on someone will enjoy it. Anyway, if you do enjoy my series then just reply to this thread.
Enjoy.


Doom: Vultures of Hades.
Chapter Six: Dawson.

As far as he could tell he was strapped to some operating table and judging by the décor he was still in the Phobos Base, the familiar smell of rotting flesh and the stench of excrement confirmed that. The room was barely lit but areas of light hue revealed that this old operating room had been used as a place of storage of something not even worth thinking about.
Dawson looked over his shoulder, he just caught a glimpse of one of those hell dogs scavenging for food and in this case his food was a rotting dismembered hand. From out of no where a limping Klegg hopped up onto the table, its left leg was slightly damaged hence the limp but it still functioned.
“Unit 42?” Enquired Dawson hazily.
The chicken size droid responded with a swift nod followed by a static “Yes.”
“Cut me free… 42.” Ordered the battered Scavenger.
The droid began preying at the strap locks removing the bolts easily.
“Where’s my gun?” Asked Dawson as he searched himself.
Half eaten by shadow the sneering voice of the Bull Imp could be heard. “Looking for this Terran?”
Dawson peeked over his shoulder; the Klegg hopped round to see the monstrous demon. His arms had been replaced and were totally biomechanical. In his right hand held steady was Dawson’s Plasma Rifle.
“As you may have noticed, us demons require our hands as weapons…”
“Yeah, that fire ball party trick you guys love so much.” Quipped Dawson.
The Bull Imp held the gun and levelled the barrel with Dawson’s face. Dawson sneered.
“I could kill you here and now…” Began the demon.
“But you can’t and you know why?” Dawson threw himself at the monstrosity, the demon dropped the weapon, Dawson kneeled down and dodged a punch, grabbed the rifle and aimed it into the beast’s abdomen. “You have the safety on.” And with that the grizzled Scavenger let loose a stream of seething hot energy severely injuring the Bull Imp, with one last gasp the demon flung himself at the fatigue stricken Scavenger.
“You will be part of my plan…” He stammered aggressively as the demon punched one of his new metallic fists into Dawson’s gut, the fist penetrated flesh with ease as he drove the metal further into Dawson’s stomach. The Scavenger in fatal agony slouch onto the fist of the demon, dead.
The demon too lay crippled on the floor in a heap along with Dawson, the dead Scavenger’s leg twitched and as the demon gave out his last breath of air Dawson pushed himself away from the blood covered fist of the now dead Bull Imp.
The Klegg, still standing of the operating table, began to shake with fear, Dawson with glee on his face laughed as he blow the droid away with a swift pull of a trigger.
Dawson had now become part of the late Bull Imp’s plan.
Meanwhile on board the Dreadnought class vessel of the Scavenger’s the remaining crew awoke, Myers’ leapt up from her slumber, “I shouldn’t have slept… shit, Dawson’s gonna have my head for this!”
She strode over to the communication’s terminal but with every attempt could not contact the crew on the surface of Phobos, even the Kleggs’ vox link was down. Something was definitely not right on the surface of Phobos. The dark pilot instead aroused McKintyre from his slumber, “Wake up, McKintyre, we’ve some trouble…”
Half awake he startlingly replied, “Huh? Try the other frequencies…”
“Tried that.” She commended.
“Maybe the vox antenna alignment is off?”
“It’s not, checked it myself.”
McKintyre suddenly became fully awake. “Let me have a look… Christ, Dawson’s gonna be pissed if he found out I was asleep…”
Myers’ cut in with, “Yeah, and I was on graveyard duty.”

[dsm]

You can't judge peoples' interest in your stories by the number of replies.
If people don't reply, it's because they don't have anything to say.

[Bad Luck Ranger]

But if no one has anything to say then they haven't got any interest, as I see it.
Plus it enables me to become a better writer, if people tell me what they like or what they didn't like then I can adapt, I've never read a book I never liked.
For example, you expressed your opinion on the Bull Imp, you stated that you didn't like demon's having the limited ability to be vocal, I processed your feedback and now we have the output, this chapter.
I originally was going to keep the Bull Imp alive to the very end, but with your feedback I realised that I didn't need an archetypal bad guy for the story. I plan to keep Dawson as long as he is needed.
Though if I had a fixed story basis then I would keep to it. I know, personally, how this story is going to be concluded, I know who will survive and who will die. Hopefully I've built on people's own opinions. I created a hero who was easy to indentify with, he's everything you would need in a hero (stereotypical) but now he's dead and not only that but his corpse has been reanimated for a perverse reason. Whose going to battle the evil now? Will Browning recover from his wounds and battle his way to the shuttle, will Myers and McKintyre make a rescue attempt? Will McKinley face her fears? Will the UAC research vessel and its crew (if they're still alive) have any more involvement with the story.
But anyway dsm, thank you for your reply. Just out of interest do you mind me adding you to my buddies list?

[dsm]

Ok, I'm afraid that you wont get a whole lot of replies - the general standard on this forum is that barely noone replies.
Take my stories for instance - whenever I do get feedback it's rarely anything remotely negative (I haven't received any suggestions to improvements since I was still working on Episode 1). I rarely get any replies to the chapters themselves, but I generally get the impression that people like my stories.

At any rate, I don't want you to quit writing this story, so I'll stick around.

[Bad Luck Ranger]

Thanks for the reply, I plan to continue the story as I have basic story elements in note for leading up to chapter 12! Believe me you'll enjoy the finale I've got planned.
Hope you don't mind I've added you to my buddies list.