The sharp crack of Arthur’s ARC-7 Mag-Carbine shattered the underground roar of the magma vents.
The high-speed heavy metal dart round crossed eighty yards in a fraction of a split second, punching cleanly through the electronic display of the nearest bio-ringing detonator on the central pillar. The end-post erupted in a shower of blue sparks and shattered liquid crystal. But the heavy steel holding casing around the void-spark core remained sealed, its internal timer continuing its relentless countdown: 00:21:44.
“Intruders on the overhead frame!” Volkov’s blended voice roared over the cave’s heavy-duty loudspeakers. “Security detail, engage! Don’t let them reach the detonator cables! Unleash the Gorgons!”
From the boiling sulfur pools flanking the narrow dark rock bridge, the six Chimeric Magma-Gorgons surged onto the stone walkway with ear-splitting, deep-throated roars that rattled the stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling.
They were eighteen feet of tightly packed, genetically spliced reptilian savagery, cultivated from deep-sea monitor lizards and deep-crust dark rock drakes. Their armored hides were composed of linked plates of fiery black glass that radiated five hundred degrees of surrounding heat. From their broad, three-sided skulls, four glowing crimson eyes burned with the lethal. That turned to stone hum of the Gorgon lineage. Meanwhile, their snake-like necks flared with poisonous neck hoods dripping with liquid sulfuric acid.
