Ruthless Read Online Free Page B

back-up, and menaced by two surviving bandits.
    The Gronk panicked again. Its hearts, starved of juddermine for at least half a second, got yet another dose, squeezing blood around its tiny body like there was no tomorrow. Things seemed to slow even more and the Gronk bewailed its fate. Of all the creatures in the universe, what terrible deeds in a past life had caused it to be born a Gronkus Pavidus ?
    There were still bullets in the air, but the Gronk was too far away to see them clearly. It twitched erratically at the noise of each passing missile, unable to distinguish between subsonic and supersonic, not knowing whether each new whoosh and crackle was the sound of a new round passing, or the forgotten echo of an old one that was long gone. Ricochets added new frets as bullets flew at it from unexpected directions, chased by sharp shoals of rock fragments.
    The juddermine maxed out. There was simply no way the Gronk could imagine things getting worse. Its somersault continued and it was upside-down once more, forced to endure the miserable spectacle of the two remaining gunmen, their eyes now locked on Johnny Alpha as they took slow but sure aim.
    Johnny Alpha evaded as best he could, rolling sideways on the ground towards cover, but he was never going to make it. The Gronk watched sadly as Johnny's gun fired another round, thrown off course by his rolling motion. His opponents' eyes were clearly locked on him now, their gun-arms swinging glacially into position. Next time their slow human muscles pulled triggers, the barrels of their weapons would be aimed right at Johnny Alpha.
    The Gronk prayed to its complex pantheon for divine assistance - particularly to the newly sainted Gloppus, said to watch over the Search/Destroy Agents. Surely it could not end this way with so few wrongs righted? Johnny Alpha must not, and could not, die. The Gronk could not bear to see it. The Gronk made a succession of wild promises to the departed Gloppus. It sought further intercession from other divinities, most notably Flookus, the Gronk god of unlikely coincidence. Perhaps, thought the Gronk, Johnny Alpha's armour might save him. Something, anything , thought the Gronk.
    It miserably continued to watch the inverted scene. It saw the dust, blood and particulates hanging in the air, and the parodic posture of the three dead men, who still had yet to hit the ground, their bodies in various stages of collapse. The Gronk observed the long smoky trail of the rocket-propelled grenade drawing a fine, grey line through the air...
    Wait a minute, thought the Gronk. Where was the bang?
    It stared along the smoke trail, past the mutilated, falling corpse of Beardy, through the random patterns of blood and bone that wheeled in a treacly track in the air behind him.
    Far in the distance, the Gronk saw the grenade, still intact, resting gently against the flat surface of the monolith. It was still moving, forging diligently onwards, pressing the steel of its spike harder and harder on the unyielding black stone. The long point began to crumple with exquisite slowness.
    As the Gronk's tumble took the gunmen out of view, showing it nothing but the sky once more, it gave tentative thanks. The grenade was going to go off. The gyve was going to give way and trigger the explosive. The gunmen would have to contend with a massive explosion at waist level almost directly behind them. It was sure to throw off their aim at the very least. For a few subjective moments, the Gronk permitted itself to be happy. Its view of the world righted again and it saw Wulf Sternhammer much more clearly now, hunkered down in the rocks, flat against the ground, peering after the progress of the grenade he had launched, unaware that it was just about to do that thing that grenades were designed to do.
    A flash of light made the rocks glint for a split-second. Somewhere behind the Gronk, the relay had been triggered and the grenade had gone off. Right now, snickered the Gronk to