Richard Rawen
First Post
heh, you and your darned Wednesday-Cliff-Hangers lol
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The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
X-COM (updated M-W-F)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 8 (June 2, 2008)
Chapter 23
“Will he be all right?” Catalina asked.
“He’s too stubborn to die,” James said, as he opened up the X-COM medikit and drew out a small object that looked like an implement of torture; a multi-pronged syringe, with three cylinders that each culminated in a long steel prong. “Let me worry about the Russian. I need you to use that thing,” he said, indicating the motion sensor riding in Cat’s hip, “to see if there are any more of them coming.”
Catalina nodded, and turned to join Jane in keeping watch along the street. The fire from the two destroyed cyberdisks had faded away; there really wasn’t much left of the things after they exploded to burn for long. But the smoke hung in a pall over the street.
Vasily was propped up against the wall of the alley a few feet from where he’d fallen. James had run over to him as soon as Jane had destroyed the second alien drone, and with Cat had dragged the fallen Russian into cover. The shot had blasted the armor protecting his chest, and James could smell the familiar stink of charred flesh beneath that, but either Vasily had gotten luckier than Buzz had back in the Utah mountains, or X-COM’s armor had gotten better, for he was still conscious, and even able to cough as James turned back to him, armed with the medical device. James swore that the Russian’s eyes widened slightly as he got a good look at it.
“I… fine, Doctor,” he said, trying to get up. He managed to shift slightly, even that faint movement causing a lot of obvious pain.
James had to fight back a chuckle. “Just hold still,” he said.
He’d worked on the new medikits himself, and he’d seen them tested but it was still something else to plunge the three needles into Vasily’s body, to see the fluids start to glow slightly as they mixed, the alien compounds seeping into the injured man’s tissues and reprogramming them, accelerating his own regenerative powers by a factor of a hundred. James had practiced medicine for many years, and a part of him still couldn’t believe what he saw as the bleeding stopped, and bits of black char fell away to reveal smooth, pink flesh beneath.
Vasily grunted, then gasped, and blinked. “That…” he said, at a loss for words.
“Yeah. Can you get up?”
He accepted James’s hand, but once on his feet, he found that he could stand without support. “Situation?” he asked, reaching down to pick up his armored vest, which was now much the worse for wear.
“You know as much as I do. Let’s go ask Catalina and Jane what they’ve found.”
They didn’t have to go far; the two women were standing about forty feet down the street, almost to where the dead men—recognizable now as SWAT troopers—were scattered around the quiet helicopter. A man was visible inside the chopper, his forehead leaned against the plexiglass window, right where an alien blast had perforated it—and him. Buzz was poking around in the wreckage from the cyberdisks, but they knew from their last encounter with them that he wasn’t likely to find much left behind.
“What is it?” Vasily asked. The building in front of them had a driveway that slanted down into what looked like a parking garage below. Catalina was working on the motion detector, adjusting the dials underneath the display.
“Not sure. Thing is acting up a bit,” Catalina said.
Vasily touched earpiece. “Ken, anything on sensor?”
Ken’s voice returned quickly. “I’ve tapped into the local law enforcement network, and I’m working on a local news channel chopper feed. Looks like another station’s defying the military ban on air traffic.”
Vasily swore and looked up. “We on TV?”
James bent and examined the bodies of the SWAT members. “Dead,” he said.
“Not sure, but it looks like some sectoids might have gone into the some of the buildings in your area,” Ken said.
“Some aliens in buildings,” Vasily said. “we may need sweep.”
“All right, let’s go,” James said.
Jane had started down the ramp into the garage; Buzz followed, with Vasily and then James after. A sedan lay askance at the bottom of the ramp, its hood crumpled where it had impacted a concrete support pillar. A few more dark shadows were visible within the garage, but the area near the entry looked otherwise deserted.
Catalina, lingering behind in the street, lifted the detector and cursed. “Wait!” she exclaimed, hurrying after them even as Jane lifted a hand at the bottom of the ramp, motioning for those behind her to halt. “For
’s sake!” the British agent hissed, careful to keep her voice down.
Jane retreated from her position. “Get back,” she said. “Aliens.”
“I could have bloody well told you that!” Catalina said, indicating the sensor. “What happened to teamwork?”
But Jane didn’t get a chance to respond, as Buzz pointed and yelled, “Over there!” His warning was followed by a loud explosion as a car suddenly went up deeper in the garage, and a loud screech echoed off the cavernous walls in its wake.
“They know we here,” Vasily said. “Take cover!” he warned, even as plasma bolts started lancing out of the shadowy depths of the garage toward them.
Chapter 23
“Will he be all right?” Catalina asked.
“He’s too stubborn to die,” James said, as he opened up the X-COM medikit and drew out a small object that looked like an implement of torture; a multi-pronged syringe, with three cylinders that each culminated in a long steel prong. “Let me worry about the Russian. I need you to use that thing,” he said, indicating the motion sensor riding in Cat’s hip, “to see if there are any more of them coming.”
Catalina nodded, and turned to join Jane in keeping watch along the street. The fire from the two destroyed cyberdisks had faded away; there really wasn’t much left of the things after they exploded to burn for long. But the smoke hung in a pall over the street.
Vasily was propped up against the wall of the alley a few feet from where he’d fallen. James had run over to him as soon as Jane had destroyed the second alien drone, and with Cat had dragged the fallen Russian into cover. The shot had blasted the armor protecting his chest, and James could smell the familiar stink of charred flesh beneath that, but either Vasily had gotten luckier than Buzz had back in the Utah mountains, or X-COM’s armor had gotten better, for he was still conscious, and even able to cough as James turned back to him, armed with the medical device. James swore that the Russian’s eyes widened slightly as he got a good look at it.
“I… fine, Doctor,” he said, trying to get up. He managed to shift slightly, even that faint movement causing a lot of obvious pain.
James had to fight back a chuckle. “Just hold still,” he said.
He’d worked on the new medikits himself, and he’d seen them tested but it was still something else to plunge the three needles into Vasily’s body, to see the fluids start to glow slightly as they mixed, the alien compounds seeping into the injured man’s tissues and reprogramming them, accelerating his own regenerative powers by a factor of a hundred. James had practiced medicine for many years, and a part of him still couldn’t believe what he saw as the bleeding stopped, and bits of black char fell away to reveal smooth, pink flesh beneath.
Vasily grunted, then gasped, and blinked. “That…” he said, at a loss for words.
“Yeah. Can you get up?”
He accepted James’s hand, but once on his feet, he found that he could stand without support. “Situation?” he asked, reaching down to pick up his armored vest, which was now much the worse for wear.
“You know as much as I do. Let’s go ask Catalina and Jane what they’ve found.”
They didn’t have to go far; the two women were standing about forty feet down the street, almost to where the dead men—recognizable now as SWAT troopers—were scattered around the quiet helicopter. A man was visible inside the chopper, his forehead leaned against the plexiglass window, right where an alien blast had perforated it—and him. Buzz was poking around in the wreckage from the cyberdisks, but they knew from their last encounter with them that he wasn’t likely to find much left behind.
“What is it?” Vasily asked. The building in front of them had a driveway that slanted down into what looked like a parking garage below. Catalina was working on the motion detector, adjusting the dials underneath the display.
“Not sure. Thing is acting up a bit,” Catalina said.
Vasily touched earpiece. “Ken, anything on sensor?”
Ken’s voice returned quickly. “I’ve tapped into the local law enforcement network, and I’m working on a local news channel chopper feed. Looks like another station’s defying the military ban on air traffic.”
Vasily swore and looked up. “We on TV?”
James bent and examined the bodies of the SWAT members. “Dead,” he said.
“Not sure, but it looks like some sectoids might have gone into the some of the buildings in your area,” Ken said.
“Some aliens in buildings,” Vasily said. “we may need sweep.”
“All right, let’s go,” James said.
Jane had started down the ramp into the garage; Buzz followed, with Vasily and then James after. A sedan lay askance at the bottom of the ramp, its hood crumpled where it had impacted a concrete support pillar. A few more dark shadows were visible within the garage, but the area near the entry looked otherwise deserted.
Catalina, lingering behind in the street, lifted the detector and cursed. “Wait!” she exclaimed, hurrying after them even as Jane lifted a hand at the bottom of the ramp, motioning for those behind her to halt. “For
’s sake!” the British agent hissed, careful to keep her voice down. Jane retreated from her position. “Get back,” she said. “Aliens.”
“I could have bloody well told you that!” Catalina said, indicating the sensor. “What happened to teamwork?”
But Jane didn’t get a chance to respond, as Buzz pointed and yelled, “Over there!” His warning was followed by a loud explosion as a car suddenly went up deeper in the garage, and a loud screech echoed off the cavernous walls in its wake.
“They know we here,” Vasily said. “Take cover!” he warned, even as plasma bolts started lancing out of the shadowy depths of the garage toward them.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Thanks for the bump! Looks like the SH forum's gotten a little busier of late.
* * * * *
Session 8 (June 2, 2008)
Chapter 24
“We have got to stop this running on ahead or we will die,” Catalina said.
The fight had been short and bloody. The sectoids had possessed the initial advantage, hiding in the shadowy half-light of the garage, while the members of Alpha had been backlit against the bright light of the street above. But Vasily had disrupted their attack with a thrown grenade, and with the others laying down a steady stream of fire, the Russian had circled around to the right, coming up behind a long concrete wall to take the survivors from behind. One of them lay unconscious on the cold floor of the garage, hit by the Russian’s stun rod; the others bled out on the floor.
Vasily had taken glancing hit to his right arm near the shoulder, which James was giving a quick examination. Buzz had suffered some scratches on his face from shards that had come from a near miss, but despite some grimaces he was more or less intact.
“Over here,” Jane said.
They continued deeper into the garage, to find another long row of parking spaces, with a brightly lit alcove with an elevator at the far end. They could all see at once what Jane had spotted, the scattered bodies obviously human, people who had tried in vain to escape from the aliens. James checked them anyway, hoping perhaps that their initial perceptions were wrong.
“Killed by plasma bolts,” he said.
If we want any hope of finding survivors, we need move fast,” Vasily said. Jane started toward the elevator, but he shook his head. “Take stairs,” he said, pointing to an almost invisible door to the right.
They made their way up into what looked like a service corridor. Two people lay in a bloody heap next to a door marked, “Emergency Exit.” While James checked the bodies, Catalina pushed on the door handle; it didn’t give. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said.
The other end of the hallway opened onto a broad foyer next to the elevator. The air conditioned foyer was brightly lit, both by the natural sunlight that streamed in from the wall that connected to the street outside, and from dozens of lights in the ceiling panels. There was a number of businesses that opened onto the foyer, and at least a half-dozen bodies lying within view.
Catalina activated the sensor and panned it around. “Faint signal, there,” she said, pointing to a doorway on the far side of the foyer that appeared to lead into a Japanese restaurant
Ken’s voice sounded in their ears. “Team, news chopper is showing survivors coming out of the cordoned area, both north and east of your position. Army ETA is ten minutes, you almost done in there?”
“Not yet, Ken, we need move fast,” Vasily said. “Meet at our position in five minutes.”
“Roger that, Alpha.”
Jane and Catalina had moved up to the front entrance of the restaurant. The interior was dimly lit, a long dining room visible behind the front counter. A faintly charred odor hung in the air.
Vasily glanced over at Catalina, who tapped the motion sensor against the wall. “Damn it, I think I’m losing power. But the last signal was this way.”
“All right,” Vasily said, leading them inside.
The restaurant was bigger than it looked outside. It was mostly deserted, although they could see a body slumped into a booth to the left of the entry, and what looked like another lying on the floor near the bar along the far wall. There were several exits, one by the bar that seemed to lead into the kitchen, one leading to a narrow hall that probably accessed the restrooms, and a third in the back, down a short hall, that might have led to another exit, or to a banquet room or offices. Vasily gestured for James, Catalina, and Buzz to head in that direction, while he led Jane toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was orderly and clean, with a long stainless steel counter running down its center. The burning smell was coming from a wok sitting ajar on the stove. Jane started forward to turn it off. Vasily started toward the right, to check the rest of the room, but was interrupted as a woman in a red blouse and dark trousers stepped into view from the side, holding the biggest handgun Vasily had ever seen pointed squarely at his chest.
“Hold it!” she warned. “Who are you?”
Jane spun and started to lift her weapon, but stopped as soon as she saw the gun pointed at her partner. “Hey, woah! It okay. We army,” Vasily said.
“Army? Yeah, right. Nice Russian accent, ‘Army’.”
“We have I.D.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do.”
“We need to get you out of here,” Jane said. “for your own safety. This is a dangerous situation still.”
The woman snorted. “More aliens, you mean? There’s three of them in there,” she said, jerking her thumb at the room behind her. “They killed all the others.”
Vasily opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, they heard the familiar sizzling sound of plasma blasts, followed immediately by the louder crack of James’s rifle and Catalina’s pistol.
“Uh oh, they know you’re here,” the woman said. “Better go help your friends.”
Vasily was already running, Jane a step behind. “Watch her!” Vasily yelled over his shoulder at Jane. Emerging back into the main dining room of the restaurant, he looked at the back hall, where weapons flashes were lighting up the short hallway. He heard James yelling something, and saw Buzz, staggering back out of the hallway, blood oozing from a gash along the side of his head.
Vasily ran toward him, but before he could reach the hacker the wall ahead exploded outward. Buzz fell to the ground, and something hard struck Vasily square in the center of the forehead, and then everything went dark.
* * * * *
Session 8 (June 2, 2008)
Chapter 24
“We have got to stop this running on ahead or we will die,” Catalina said.
The fight had been short and bloody. The sectoids had possessed the initial advantage, hiding in the shadowy half-light of the garage, while the members of Alpha had been backlit against the bright light of the street above. But Vasily had disrupted their attack with a thrown grenade, and with the others laying down a steady stream of fire, the Russian had circled around to the right, coming up behind a long concrete wall to take the survivors from behind. One of them lay unconscious on the cold floor of the garage, hit by the Russian’s stun rod; the others bled out on the floor.
Vasily had taken glancing hit to his right arm near the shoulder, which James was giving a quick examination. Buzz had suffered some scratches on his face from shards that had come from a near miss, but despite some grimaces he was more or less intact.
“Over here,” Jane said.
They continued deeper into the garage, to find another long row of parking spaces, with a brightly lit alcove with an elevator at the far end. They could all see at once what Jane had spotted, the scattered bodies obviously human, people who had tried in vain to escape from the aliens. James checked them anyway, hoping perhaps that their initial perceptions were wrong.
“Killed by plasma bolts,” he said.
If we want any hope of finding survivors, we need move fast,” Vasily said. Jane started toward the elevator, but he shook his head. “Take stairs,” he said, pointing to an almost invisible door to the right.
They made their way up into what looked like a service corridor. Two people lay in a bloody heap next to a door marked, “Emergency Exit.” While James checked the bodies, Catalina pushed on the door handle; it didn’t give. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said.
The other end of the hallway opened onto a broad foyer next to the elevator. The air conditioned foyer was brightly lit, both by the natural sunlight that streamed in from the wall that connected to the street outside, and from dozens of lights in the ceiling panels. There was a number of businesses that opened onto the foyer, and at least a half-dozen bodies lying within view.
Catalina activated the sensor and panned it around. “Faint signal, there,” she said, pointing to a doorway on the far side of the foyer that appeared to lead into a Japanese restaurant
Ken’s voice sounded in their ears. “Team, news chopper is showing survivors coming out of the cordoned area, both north and east of your position. Army ETA is ten minutes, you almost done in there?”
“Not yet, Ken, we need move fast,” Vasily said. “Meet at our position in five minutes.”
“Roger that, Alpha.”
Jane and Catalina had moved up to the front entrance of the restaurant. The interior was dimly lit, a long dining room visible behind the front counter. A faintly charred odor hung in the air.
Vasily glanced over at Catalina, who tapped the motion sensor against the wall. “Damn it, I think I’m losing power. But the last signal was this way.”
“All right,” Vasily said, leading them inside.
The restaurant was bigger than it looked outside. It was mostly deserted, although they could see a body slumped into a booth to the left of the entry, and what looked like another lying on the floor near the bar along the far wall. There were several exits, one by the bar that seemed to lead into the kitchen, one leading to a narrow hall that probably accessed the restrooms, and a third in the back, down a short hall, that might have led to another exit, or to a banquet room or offices. Vasily gestured for James, Catalina, and Buzz to head in that direction, while he led Jane toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was orderly and clean, with a long stainless steel counter running down its center. The burning smell was coming from a wok sitting ajar on the stove. Jane started forward to turn it off. Vasily started toward the right, to check the rest of the room, but was interrupted as a woman in a red blouse and dark trousers stepped into view from the side, holding the biggest handgun Vasily had ever seen pointed squarely at his chest.
“Hold it!” she warned. “Who are you?”
Jane spun and started to lift her weapon, but stopped as soon as she saw the gun pointed at her partner. “Hey, woah! It okay. We army,” Vasily said.
“Army? Yeah, right. Nice Russian accent, ‘Army’.”
“We have I.D.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do.”
“We need to get you out of here,” Jane said. “for your own safety. This is a dangerous situation still.”
The woman snorted. “More aliens, you mean? There’s three of them in there,” she said, jerking her thumb at the room behind her. “They killed all the others.”
Vasily opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, they heard the familiar sizzling sound of plasma blasts, followed immediately by the louder crack of James’s rifle and Catalina’s pistol.
“Uh oh, they know you’re here,” the woman said. “Better go help your friends.”
Vasily was already running, Jane a step behind. “Watch her!” Vasily yelled over his shoulder at Jane. Emerging back into the main dining room of the restaurant, he looked at the back hall, where weapons flashes were lighting up the short hallway. He heard James yelling something, and saw Buzz, staggering back out of the hallway, blood oozing from a gash along the side of his head.
Vasily ran toward him, but before he could reach the hacker the wall ahead exploded outward. Buzz fell to the ground, and something hard struck Vasily square in the center of the forehead, and then everything went dark.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 8 (June 2, 2008)
Chapter 25
Vasily groaned as pain accompanied the return of consciousness. He blinked to see James kneeling over him. “Aliens?”
“All down.”
“Everybody all right?”
“Buzz will have a headache for a while, but we’re all otherwise intact.”
Vasily grimaced as James lifted the tri-prong injector he’d used to deliver a second dose of alien bio-material. But the pain began to fade, accompanied by a surging lethargy that the Russian forced aside with a considerable effort. He didn’t turn down the hand that James offered to help him up, though.
He glanced around the restaurant. “Where… where she go?” he asked, shooting a hard look at Jane.
“She just disappeared,” Jane said.
“She got gun, she could commandeer Skyranger,” Vasily said. “Ken even got gun?”
Their communicators buzzed. “I’ve landed just outside the main entrance to your building,” Ken said. “We’ve got company coming here, a full platoon of soldiers coming up the street.”
“We need to go,” James said.
“Everything secure here?” Jane asked.
“We got what the aliens were carrying,” Catalina said.
“No time,” Vasily said.
They emerged from the main doors back into the street, the light and heat hitting them like two hammers. The Skyranger was there as promised, waiting for them, but so was a large group of soldiers, led by a man shouting orders who did not look pleased to see them.
“Somebody tell me what the sam hell is goin’ on here?” he yelled, his voice tinged with more than a hint of the Deep South. “Who the hell are you people?”
“Somebody else best do talking,” Vasily said quietly.
Catalina stepped forward, gesturing subtly for James to accompany her. “Special Branch of FBI, fast response unit,” Catalina said, her British accent suddenly gone.
“So, where are you guys from?” James added, wiping blood off of his shoes.
The soldier, who wore the oak leaf of a lieutenant colonel, turned to Catalina. “FBI? Look, ma’am, I’m just a soldier, career army, but I’m no idiot. We just saw some freakin’ weird-ass bodies back there, and I got orders to clean me up this here whole district, which includes the—”
He was cut off by a subordinate, who ran up holding a portable radio. “Sir. Radio message coming in.”
“Well now, Jenkins, give it here,” the colonel said. “Sir, yes, it’s Randolph. We got us...” he paused for a moment, listening. “Yes, yes, that’s them. There’s these bodies… Sir. Ah, yes, sir. Whatever you say.”
He lowered the radio and looked at Catalina. “You’re free to go.”
“But sir,” one of the other soldiers started, only to be cut off by a hard look from the colonel. Catalina nodded, and walked past him to the Skyranger, the hatch opening to greet her. “Told you, Special Branch,” she said, climbing on board the aircraft. The others followed, while the colonel remained shouting orders behind them. They could still hear him, the soldiers backing away as Ken fired up the engines of the Skyranger, until the hatch finally closed, leaving the chaos of the street scene behind them.
Chapter 25
Vasily groaned as pain accompanied the return of consciousness. He blinked to see James kneeling over him. “Aliens?”
“All down.”
“Everybody all right?”
“Buzz will have a headache for a while, but we’re all otherwise intact.”
Vasily grimaced as James lifted the tri-prong injector he’d used to deliver a second dose of alien bio-material. But the pain began to fade, accompanied by a surging lethargy that the Russian forced aside with a considerable effort. He didn’t turn down the hand that James offered to help him up, though.
He glanced around the restaurant. “Where… where she go?” he asked, shooting a hard look at Jane.
“She just disappeared,” Jane said.
“She got gun, she could commandeer Skyranger,” Vasily said. “Ken even got gun?”
Their communicators buzzed. “I’ve landed just outside the main entrance to your building,” Ken said. “We’ve got company coming here, a full platoon of soldiers coming up the street.”
“We need to go,” James said.
“Everything secure here?” Jane asked.
“We got what the aliens were carrying,” Catalina said.
“No time,” Vasily said.
They emerged from the main doors back into the street, the light and heat hitting them like two hammers. The Skyranger was there as promised, waiting for them, but so was a large group of soldiers, led by a man shouting orders who did not look pleased to see them.
“Somebody tell me what the sam hell is goin’ on here?” he yelled, his voice tinged with more than a hint of the Deep South. “Who the hell are you people?”
“Somebody else best do talking,” Vasily said quietly.
Catalina stepped forward, gesturing subtly for James to accompany her. “Special Branch of FBI, fast response unit,” Catalina said, her British accent suddenly gone.
“So, where are you guys from?” James added, wiping blood off of his shoes.
The soldier, who wore the oak leaf of a lieutenant colonel, turned to Catalina. “FBI? Look, ma’am, I’m just a soldier, career army, but I’m no idiot. We just saw some freakin’ weird-ass bodies back there, and I got orders to clean me up this here whole district, which includes the—”
He was cut off by a subordinate, who ran up holding a portable radio. “Sir. Radio message coming in.”
“Well now, Jenkins, give it here,” the colonel said. “Sir, yes, it’s Randolph. We got us...” he paused for a moment, listening. “Yes, yes, that’s them. There’s these bodies… Sir. Ah, yes, sir. Whatever you say.”
He lowered the radio and looked at Catalina. “You’re free to go.”
“But sir,” one of the other soldiers started, only to be cut off by a hard look from the colonel. Catalina nodded, and walked past him to the Skyranger, the hatch opening to greet her. “Told you, Special Branch,” she said, climbing on board the aircraft. The others followed, while the colonel remained shouting orders behind them. They could still hear him, the soldiers backing away as Ken fired up the engines of the Skyranger, until the hatch finally closed, leaving the chaos of the street scene behind them.
Innocent Bystander
First Post
Wow, everyone survived. Impressive. I remember typically losing an average of 2 team members until they could be equipped with decent armor and firepower. Of course that probably had a lot to do with me usually throwing caution to the wind to get the area cleared as quickly as possible.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Interlude: Base Priorities (June 3, 2008)
* * * * *
Session 9 (June 9, 2008)
Chapter 26
“So, do you think we can master the sectoid language?” Jane asked.
“If they have language as we know it,” James noted.
“Perhaps,” Ama Ngunyi said. She was a short, dark-skinned woman, her hair cropped short around her head, a faint lilting tone to her words. “The ones you have captured have been uncommunicative, however.”
“Their body structures are very odd,” James said.
Catalina, sitting a short distance away on the couch in the lounge, said, “There is the option for mental communication, of course.”
The African woman nodded. “The researchers have considered that possibility. It offers intriguing possibilities for the language acquisition issue.”
“Is there any chance that the sectoids are communicating with each other through non-verbal means, like chemically, or other forms of energy?”
Ama shook her head. “We have not been able to detect any such communication, Miss Swift.”
The door to the outer hall slid open, and a tall, muscled blonde who looked like she’d stepped out of an Elle ad walked into the rom. “Yo, Ama,” she said. “You missed the scrim.”
Ama turned toward the newcomer. “My apologies, Alyssa. I have been busy in the containment lab. Doctor White and I have been working with the alien captives.”
“Bah, the blonde said. “Give me some live ones.” She smiled at Jane and Catalina. “Zap, zap, right girls?” She made a mock pistol with her fingers and sighted down it. “I can almost outshoot that bastard Mexican.”
Vasily, taking a burrito out of the microwave, rolled his eyes and looked around for the magazine he’d been reading earlier.
“They stuff they got us doing here,” Alyssa went on, “it’s not much harder than the little stunts they had us doing on Survivor.”
“What’s that?” Cat asked.
“Ah, you never watch television? Or telly, I suppose you call it,” she added, with a grin.
“I’ve never heard of the programme.”
“Heh, the last eps drew 175 million worldwide, especially after those two guys died.”
“I not think this show make it to my country,” Vasily said, without looking up from his magazine.
“Survivor Antarctica was a global phenom!” Alyssa said.
Catalina shrugged. “I was probably out that night.”
“Well. If you will excuse me,” Ama said, “I have some work to do in the computer lab.”
James stood as well. “I’ll go with you. I want to check in at the medical lab and see if they are making more progress on more medikits.” The two of them left, while Alyssa went on with her description of Beta Team’s latest training exercise. After a few minutes, she got up and dug out a box of granola bars from the back of one of the cabinets. “Well, gotta go,” she said. “Toodles, all.”
“I never thought I’d meet anyone more full of themselves than I am,” Catalina said, once she’d left.
“I hope she lasts,” Jane said.
“World short on military volunteers now? Or she got super powers or something?”
James left Ama at the corridor that led into the base’s South Wing; she headed to the computer lab, while he turned left into the medical bay. The medical staff was still sharing room with the base researchers, which made for some crowding issues, but Grace’s engineers were working on setting up a newly-drilled area deeper in the complex that would give Stan and his team a dedicated space for their use. When it came to living space, the scientists and engineers had it even worse than Alpha Team, sharing a long barracks dormitory with beds that slept two or sometimes even three people in shifts. Plans were in the works for more barracks as well, but at the moment, priority was being given to projects that would directly affect the war effort against the aliens.
As James entered the lab, he saw that there was a commotion on the far side of the room, where a short hall led to the quarters used by the lab teams, and to the storerooms that had been pressed into service as overflow labs. Curious, he headed in that direction.
“Damn it,” Chief Hallorand was saying, increasingly agitated, “What’s the situation in there?”
Hallorand was surrounded by a crowd of scientists that James knew only casually, and Jürgen Ritter. A guard stood nearby, fingering his rifle nervously. “That thing, it just started shooting!” one of the scientists said. James saw with a start that one of the men was clutching a shoulder from which a bright red stain was spreading across his pristine white coat. “Let me see that,” James said, hurrying forward. “Medic!” he yelled back toward the lab.
“Maybe an EM pulse?” Jürgen suggested.
“Do you see an electromagnetic generator lying around here, Doctor Ritter?” Hallorand shot back. Noticing James, he said, “Allen. Good. We might need your team, I think.”
After turning over the injured scientist to the emergency nurse who’d run up at his call, bearing a white medical bag, James dug his communicator out of his pocket and slung the earpiece over his right ear. “Alpha, come to the second research lab, emergency!”
“Chief, you want us to go in there and ventilate the place?” the guard asked.
“Gods, no!” Jürgen said. “there are captives…”
“A robot’s holding prisoners. You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
“No, he is right,” the researcher with the injured arm said. “They are pinned in the back of the room. I saw Doctor Sandesh take a hit, he’s probably wounded…”
“A robot?” James asked.
“The prototype weapons platform,” Jürgen replied.
“What about it?” Catalina said, as she the others rushed up to join the cluster of people. All of the members of Alpha had their weapons, Jane flicking on the power unit to her laser pistol as she stepped up next to Hallorand.
“The weapons platform appears to have… malfunctioned,” Hallorand said.
“It tried to kill us all!” the wounded scientist exclaimed.
“What the hell were you doing testing it with live ammo?” Jürgen shot back. The researcher blinked. “All the weapons were deactivated,” he said.
“Oh goodie, where is Doctor S?” Catalina asked. “That was his pet project.”
“He’s in there,” James said.
“Anybody die?” Vasily asked.
“Someone was behind me,” the injured man said. “I think it was Doctor Gordon. He didn’t make it…”
“We got remote feed?” Hallorand asked, taking out his xPhone.
“Security grid in the room is offline,” the guard said.
“Okay, everyone get back,” Hallorand barked. “We’ll let Alpha sort this out. I don’t want a crossfire set up here.” He turned to the guard. “Set up a perimeter in the outer lab.” The man saluted, and started urging the scientists back.
Vasily and Catalina stepped up to the door that led into the secondary lab. “What kind of weapons this thing pack?” he asked.
The injured scientist, now on the far side of the hall, turned back to them. “It had a cannon, but we deactivated it… I saw the indicators myself…”
“It has a small caliber short-ranged cannon,” Jane said. “I saw the schematics during my work with Doctor Sandesh. In a close space like this one…”
Vasily shook his head. “Cannon, hun?”
Catalina checked the indicator panel next to the door mechanism. “The door is locked, hold on,” she said, taking out her small pouch of tools.
“Keycard not work?” Vasily asked.
“Locked out,” Catalina said. Buzz had started forward, but Catalina inserted a metal probe behind the access console, touched two places in rapid succession, and the door abruptly hissed open.
The lab was dark, with only a single flickering panel in the ceiling still shedding light. It was enough to see the body lying on the floor near the door, covered with blood.
They could also see the small object in the center of the room, a squat rectangle roughly the size of a banana box, with sloping, armored sides, and a contraption of sensors and other projections jutting out from its top. It let out hissing, beeping noises as it rocked back and forth, and as it suddenly spun toward the door, they could see the menacing barrel of the cannon that jutted from its body.
Before they could do anything more than stare at it, it started shooting at them.
* * * * *
Session 9 (June 9, 2008)
Chapter 26
“So, do you think we can master the sectoid language?” Jane asked.
“If they have language as we know it,” James noted.
“Perhaps,” Ama Ngunyi said. She was a short, dark-skinned woman, her hair cropped short around her head, a faint lilting tone to her words. “The ones you have captured have been uncommunicative, however.”
“Their body structures are very odd,” James said.
Catalina, sitting a short distance away on the couch in the lounge, said, “There is the option for mental communication, of course.”
The African woman nodded. “The researchers have considered that possibility. It offers intriguing possibilities for the language acquisition issue.”
“Is there any chance that the sectoids are communicating with each other through non-verbal means, like chemically, or other forms of energy?”
Ama shook her head. “We have not been able to detect any such communication, Miss Swift.”
The door to the outer hall slid open, and a tall, muscled blonde who looked like she’d stepped out of an Elle ad walked into the rom. “Yo, Ama,” she said. “You missed the scrim.”
Ama turned toward the newcomer. “My apologies, Alyssa. I have been busy in the containment lab. Doctor White and I have been working with the alien captives.”
“Bah, the blonde said. “Give me some live ones.” She smiled at Jane and Catalina. “Zap, zap, right girls?” She made a mock pistol with her fingers and sighted down it. “I can almost outshoot that bastard Mexican.”
Vasily, taking a burrito out of the microwave, rolled his eyes and looked around for the magazine he’d been reading earlier.
“They stuff they got us doing here,” Alyssa went on, “it’s not much harder than the little stunts they had us doing on Survivor.”
“What’s that?” Cat asked.
“Ah, you never watch television? Or telly, I suppose you call it,” she added, with a grin.
“I’ve never heard of the programme.”
“Heh, the last eps drew 175 million worldwide, especially after those two guys died.”
“I not think this show make it to my country,” Vasily said, without looking up from his magazine.
“Survivor Antarctica was a global phenom!” Alyssa said.
Catalina shrugged. “I was probably out that night.”
“Well. If you will excuse me,” Ama said, “I have some work to do in the computer lab.”
James stood as well. “I’ll go with you. I want to check in at the medical lab and see if they are making more progress on more medikits.” The two of them left, while Alyssa went on with her description of Beta Team’s latest training exercise. After a few minutes, she got up and dug out a box of granola bars from the back of one of the cabinets. “Well, gotta go,” she said. “Toodles, all.”
“I never thought I’d meet anyone more full of themselves than I am,” Catalina said, once she’d left.
“I hope she lasts,” Jane said.
“World short on military volunteers now? Or she got super powers or something?”
James left Ama at the corridor that led into the base’s South Wing; she headed to the computer lab, while he turned left into the medical bay. The medical staff was still sharing room with the base researchers, which made for some crowding issues, but Grace’s engineers were working on setting up a newly-drilled area deeper in the complex that would give Stan and his team a dedicated space for their use. When it came to living space, the scientists and engineers had it even worse than Alpha Team, sharing a long barracks dormitory with beds that slept two or sometimes even three people in shifts. Plans were in the works for more barracks as well, but at the moment, priority was being given to projects that would directly affect the war effort against the aliens.
As James entered the lab, he saw that there was a commotion on the far side of the room, where a short hall led to the quarters used by the lab teams, and to the storerooms that had been pressed into service as overflow labs. Curious, he headed in that direction.
“Damn it,” Chief Hallorand was saying, increasingly agitated, “What’s the situation in there?”
Hallorand was surrounded by a crowd of scientists that James knew only casually, and Jürgen Ritter. A guard stood nearby, fingering his rifle nervously. “That thing, it just started shooting!” one of the scientists said. James saw with a start that one of the men was clutching a shoulder from which a bright red stain was spreading across his pristine white coat. “Let me see that,” James said, hurrying forward. “Medic!” he yelled back toward the lab.
“Maybe an EM pulse?” Jürgen suggested.
“Do you see an electromagnetic generator lying around here, Doctor Ritter?” Hallorand shot back. Noticing James, he said, “Allen. Good. We might need your team, I think.”
After turning over the injured scientist to the emergency nurse who’d run up at his call, bearing a white medical bag, James dug his communicator out of his pocket and slung the earpiece over his right ear. “Alpha, come to the second research lab, emergency!”
“Chief, you want us to go in there and ventilate the place?” the guard asked.
“Gods, no!” Jürgen said. “there are captives…”
“A robot’s holding prisoners. You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
“No, he is right,” the researcher with the injured arm said. “They are pinned in the back of the room. I saw Doctor Sandesh take a hit, he’s probably wounded…”
“A robot?” James asked.
“The prototype weapons platform,” Jürgen replied.
“What about it?” Catalina said, as she the others rushed up to join the cluster of people. All of the members of Alpha had their weapons, Jane flicking on the power unit to her laser pistol as she stepped up next to Hallorand.
“The weapons platform appears to have… malfunctioned,” Hallorand said.
“It tried to kill us all!” the wounded scientist exclaimed.
“What the hell were you doing testing it with live ammo?” Jürgen shot back. The researcher blinked. “All the weapons were deactivated,” he said.
“Oh goodie, where is Doctor S?” Catalina asked. “That was his pet project.”
“He’s in there,” James said.
“Anybody die?” Vasily asked.
“Someone was behind me,” the injured man said. “I think it was Doctor Gordon. He didn’t make it…”
“We got remote feed?” Hallorand asked, taking out his xPhone.
“Security grid in the room is offline,” the guard said.
“Okay, everyone get back,” Hallorand barked. “We’ll let Alpha sort this out. I don’t want a crossfire set up here.” He turned to the guard. “Set up a perimeter in the outer lab.” The man saluted, and started urging the scientists back.
Vasily and Catalina stepped up to the door that led into the secondary lab. “What kind of weapons this thing pack?” he asked.
The injured scientist, now on the far side of the hall, turned back to them. “It had a cannon, but we deactivated it… I saw the indicators myself…”
“It has a small caliber short-ranged cannon,” Jane said. “I saw the schematics during my work with Doctor Sandesh. In a close space like this one…”
Vasily shook his head. “Cannon, hun?”
Catalina checked the indicator panel next to the door mechanism. “The door is locked, hold on,” she said, taking out her small pouch of tools.
“Keycard not work?” Vasily asked.
“Locked out,” Catalina said. Buzz had started forward, but Catalina inserted a metal probe behind the access console, touched two places in rapid succession, and the door abruptly hissed open.
The lab was dark, with only a single flickering panel in the ceiling still shedding light. It was enough to see the body lying on the floor near the door, covered with blood.
They could also see the small object in the center of the room, a squat rectangle roughly the size of a banana box, with sloping, armored sides, and a contraption of sensors and other projections jutting out from its top. It let out hissing, beeping noises as it rocked back and forth, and as it suddenly spun toward the door, they could see the menacing barrel of the cannon that jutted from its body.
Before they could do anything more than stare at it, it started shooting at them.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 9 (June 9, 2008)
Chapter 27
Vasily and Catalina dove forward, the Russian taking cover behind a stack of crates, while Catalina fell behind a computer console that was set up facing the center of the room. Sparks and metal shards showered around the door, and there was a sudden gout of steam as a round penetrated a thick metal pipe. But at least in the immediate moment, none of them were hit.
Catalina looked up in surprise as Buzz threw himself down next to her. The hacker looked almost as surprised. He started to get up, to get a look at the console, but Catalina jerked him back down. “Wait,” she whispered.
“Buzz! You shut it down?” Vasily yelled, ducking lower as a cannon shell penetrated the crates he was hiding behind. Jane opened up from the doorway, her laser lancing a bright beam across the room. She hit the weapons platform but failed to destroy it, and was forced to duck back as the device sent several shells her way. Part of the door came off as a round clipped it, and the entire assembly creaked alarmingly as one of the hinges was struck.
James, crawling along the floor, reached forward and grabbed the fallen scientist. Careful to keep his head down, he pulled the man over the threshold, where a guard helped to drag him to safety.
“Let me get its attention,” Catalina said to Buzz. She darted out from behind the console, running around the perimeter of the room, trying to get behind the weapons platform. The device sensed her and started turning its turret. Buzz rose carefully and started working on the console.
“Look out!” Vasily yelled. He lifted his rifle, but didn’t have a shot; a miss could have easily struck Catalina. The British agent dove behind a row of crates just as the cannon lined up and fired, the shot hitting a line of shelves behind her and knocking it down with a loud clatter of metal parts and machinery.
The back of the HWP’s turret began to glow, as Jane focused a steady beam of coherent light upon it. The device started to turn, but suddenly something inside it gave way, and with a blast of smoke and sparks it abruptly stopped moving. It continued to hiss and roil and it lay there in the middle of the room.
Catalina started to get up, but Vasily stopped her with a raised hand. Warily, the Russian came forward, his rifle trained on the thing. Deactivated, it looked somehow smaller now.
A woman dressed in the scrubs of a surgical nurse leaned out behind the stacked crates and unused machinery in the back corner of the room. “Is it… dead now?”
Two men emerged from cover after her. “The device was never alive, my dear,” Doctor Okwelume said. “A simple equipment malfunction.”
Fadil Sandesh was less sanguine. “Ah, my device!” he exclaimed, standing over it like a man finding his dog struck by a car on the edge of a road. “Ruined!”
Buzz came over to him. “Wow, this looks bad,” he said.
“Weeks of work, wrecked!” Sandesh exclaimed.
“Apologies, Doctor Sandesh, but it was them or it,” Catalina said.
“Doctor, you forget yourself,” Okwelume said. “These people saved our lives.”
James came into the room, blood smeared on his hands. “We lost Gordon here. Took one right through the chest cavity.”
Sandesh looked as though he’d been struck. “If you’d given me the resources I asked for… this would never have happened!” He stormed off.
“Engineers, never will understand them,” Catalina muttered.
Chief Hallorand came in, accompanied by a pair of guards. “Damn it,” he said. “Medical team is on its way down, to get the body.” He scanned the room. “We’ve got a tough enough time without taking casualties here. What happened?”
“Better ask Doctor Sandesh,” James said.
“Okay, we’ll clean this up,” Hallorand said. “Better report in. I don’t want to be the one to tell Garret about this.”
“I will submit my own report as well,” Doctor Okwelume said. “I believe it is unfair to pillory Doctor Sandesh for this, until there is evidence.”
Buzz had been working on the console during the exchange, and he muttered to himself, “Something is very wrong here.”
Catalina, who was standing not far from the console, heard him. “What have you seen?”
“Look,” he said, indicating the screen in front of him, where a complex scrawl of machine language had filled the display. “I can’t read that,” Catalina prompted.
“The security protocols were bypassed,” he said.
“Sabotage?” Jane asked.
“Bypassed?” Hallorand added. “Deliberately?”
Vasily muttered angrily. “Reports not say, ‘if you not give me more resources, then machine will flip out and kill man.’” He clenched his fists.
Buzz continued searching through the database. “Someone has tampered with the AI protocols, someone good with hiding his or her tracks.”
“Can you find out who did it?” Hallorand asked.
Buzz looked up at him. He looked uncertain, but before he could respond, a voice interrupted over the base intercom. “Alpha Team, report to Briefing Room 1. We have an alien incursion in progress.”
Chapter 27
Vasily and Catalina dove forward, the Russian taking cover behind a stack of crates, while Catalina fell behind a computer console that was set up facing the center of the room. Sparks and metal shards showered around the door, and there was a sudden gout of steam as a round penetrated a thick metal pipe. But at least in the immediate moment, none of them were hit.
Catalina looked up in surprise as Buzz threw himself down next to her. The hacker looked almost as surprised. He started to get up, to get a look at the console, but Catalina jerked him back down. “Wait,” she whispered.
“Buzz! You shut it down?” Vasily yelled, ducking lower as a cannon shell penetrated the crates he was hiding behind. Jane opened up from the doorway, her laser lancing a bright beam across the room. She hit the weapons platform but failed to destroy it, and was forced to duck back as the device sent several shells her way. Part of the door came off as a round clipped it, and the entire assembly creaked alarmingly as one of the hinges was struck.
James, crawling along the floor, reached forward and grabbed the fallen scientist. Careful to keep his head down, he pulled the man over the threshold, where a guard helped to drag him to safety.
“Let me get its attention,” Catalina said to Buzz. She darted out from behind the console, running around the perimeter of the room, trying to get behind the weapons platform. The device sensed her and started turning its turret. Buzz rose carefully and started working on the console.
“Look out!” Vasily yelled. He lifted his rifle, but didn’t have a shot; a miss could have easily struck Catalina. The British agent dove behind a row of crates just as the cannon lined up and fired, the shot hitting a line of shelves behind her and knocking it down with a loud clatter of metal parts and machinery.
The back of the HWP’s turret began to glow, as Jane focused a steady beam of coherent light upon it. The device started to turn, but suddenly something inside it gave way, and with a blast of smoke and sparks it abruptly stopped moving. It continued to hiss and roil and it lay there in the middle of the room.
Catalina started to get up, but Vasily stopped her with a raised hand. Warily, the Russian came forward, his rifle trained on the thing. Deactivated, it looked somehow smaller now.
A woman dressed in the scrubs of a surgical nurse leaned out behind the stacked crates and unused machinery in the back corner of the room. “Is it… dead now?”
Two men emerged from cover after her. “The device was never alive, my dear,” Doctor Okwelume said. “A simple equipment malfunction.”
Fadil Sandesh was less sanguine. “Ah, my device!” he exclaimed, standing over it like a man finding his dog struck by a car on the edge of a road. “Ruined!”
Buzz came over to him. “Wow, this looks bad,” he said.
“Weeks of work, wrecked!” Sandesh exclaimed.
“Apologies, Doctor Sandesh, but it was them or it,” Catalina said.
“Doctor, you forget yourself,” Okwelume said. “These people saved our lives.”
James came into the room, blood smeared on his hands. “We lost Gordon here. Took one right through the chest cavity.”
Sandesh looked as though he’d been struck. “If you’d given me the resources I asked for… this would never have happened!” He stormed off.
“Engineers, never will understand them,” Catalina muttered.
Chief Hallorand came in, accompanied by a pair of guards. “Damn it,” he said. “Medical team is on its way down, to get the body.” He scanned the room. “We’ve got a tough enough time without taking casualties here. What happened?”
“Better ask Doctor Sandesh,” James said.
“Okay, we’ll clean this up,” Hallorand said. “Better report in. I don’t want to be the one to tell Garret about this.”
“I will submit my own report as well,” Doctor Okwelume said. “I believe it is unfair to pillory Doctor Sandesh for this, until there is evidence.”
Buzz had been working on the console during the exchange, and he muttered to himself, “Something is very wrong here.”
Catalina, who was standing not far from the console, heard him. “What have you seen?”
“Look,” he said, indicating the screen in front of him, where a complex scrawl of machine language had filled the display. “I can’t read that,” Catalina prompted.
“The security protocols were bypassed,” he said.
“Sabotage?” Jane asked.
“Bypassed?” Hallorand added. “Deliberately?”
Vasily muttered angrily. “Reports not say, ‘if you not give me more resources, then machine will flip out and kill man.’” He clenched his fists.
Buzz continued searching through the database. “Someone has tampered with the AI protocols, someone good with hiding his or her tracks.”
“Can you find out who did it?” Hallorand asked.
Buzz looked up at him. He looked uncertain, but before he could respond, a voice interrupted over the base intercom. “Alpha Team, report to Briefing Room 1. We have an alien incursion in progress.”
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 9 (June 9, 2008)
Chapter 28
When they entered the briefing room, the others were clustered around the big monitor in the wall. Kim Wagner was reporting information as it arrived on her console, updating the track that was crawling across the map on the screen.
“What’s the course now, Kim?” Garret asked. He had a phone on one ear, with a communications headset in the other, and looked like he was carrying on several conversations at once.
“The alien vessel is moving quickly over the Gulf of Mexico, heading north by northeast.”
Garret glanced over his shoulder at the members of Alpha as they entered the room. “Radar’s picked up an alien, small, moving fast,” he said, before turning back to the screen.
“Over the eastern states?” Catalina asked, looking at the trajectory that continued to evolve on the map.
“At its current course, it looks like it will pass over Florida, maybe South Carolina,” Kim said.
“Oh good, swamps,” Buzz muttered.
“That trajectory takes it over some heavily populated areas,” Catalina said.
“Rest assured, we will deal with it when it enters United States airspace,” Agent Drake said.
The pilot Ken Yushi was sitting on the briefing room table behind the knot of people around the viewer. “I don’t know, Agent. It’s moving real fast,” he said.
“Interceptor 1 is en route,” Garret announced. “Time to intercept, Kim?”
Kim entered a few calculations into her control console. A new track, highlighted in green, appeared on the map. “At current course and speed, nineteen minutes.”
“Shouldn’t we be in the air?” Jane asked.
“Well, I think we should,” Drake began, but she was cut off by Kim. “Wait! I am reading another track.”
“What?” Garret said. “Another UFO?”
Kim bent over her console. “Yes,” she finally said, after a few seconds. “Confirmed…”
“Course and speed?” Garret barked.
Kim looked up from her screen. “It’s heading… it’s heading right for us.”
“Here!” Grace exclaimed.
There was a stir of exclamations around the table. “Director, I need to attend to the missile battery,” Grace said.
“Go, Grace,” Garret said. She was gone in a flash, running before the outer door had slid fully open.
“Excellent,” James said. “We can wait for ‘em here, no need to fly.”
“What bout other one?” Vasily asked.
“The other one is still on its course,” Kim said. The track of the second alien ship had appeared on the screen, its path pointing like a dagger toward the small blue square that represented the Nevada base. “Interceptor 1 will be in range in twelve minutes.”
“What about Interceptor 2?” Yushi asked.
“Still being repaired,” Garret said.
“Should we be heading after the first?” Catalina asked. “The second could be a decoy to distract us.”
“Or maybe first is decoy, to draw us out before they attack,” Vasily said. “Or maybe is just one big coincidence.”
“Who knows what the hell is going on in those little gray heads of theirs,” Drake said.
“Anyway, is this not why we have two teams?” Vasily asked.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Cat added.
“If we launch now, they’ll spot the base for sure,” Drake said.
“The second alien’s course is shifting,” Kim reported. “It is… what is the English expression, to go back and forth?”
“I think ‘zig zag’ is what you’re looking for, doc,” Yushi said.
Grace’s voice came over the intercom. “Grace here. The missile battery is armed and ready.”
“Kim, status? Is UFO 2 heading here, or not?” Garret asked.
“It is continuing to ‘zig zag’, almost like a search pattern.”
“Range to target?” Garret asked.
“Seventy miles,” Kim returned.
Garret activated his communicator. “Grace, what’s the range on the missile battery?”
“Forty-five miles, give or take.”
“Kim, range to UFO 2?”
“Fifty miles, and closing.”
Garret placed his fists down on the table. “Then the question becomes, do we take the shot?” He looked up at the members of Alpha, who formed a line along the far side of the table.
“It not good if we can be stalemated like this,” Vasily said.
“What are you doing, asking them?” Drake said. “Of course you take the shot!”
“Kim?” Garret asked.
“Forty-two miles.”
“Enemy in range, but it’s a long shot, chief,” Grace’s voice came over the speaker.
“They want us to reveal our position,” Jane said.
“Oh, and your extensive experience tells you that, Swift,” Drake snapped.
“If missiles keeping it messing about doing nothing, I say, keep missiles as deterrent,” Vasily said.
“Kim?”
“UFO 1 is… forty-eight miles off. It’s moving away.”
“You blew your chance!” Drake hissed. “Now it will report back.”
“Yeah, but it has nothing to report,” Stan said.
On the eastern part of the map, the green line coming from the west had nearly bisected the red one coming up from the Gulf. “Interceptor 1 has engaged UFO 1!” Kim said.
There was a period of silence, as everyone there watched the lines running across the map, as though they could reveal what was happening in the skies hundreds of miles away. Finally, Kim bent over her console again. Letting out a held breath, she said, “Interceptor 1 has reported an Avalanche hit on UFO 1. The alien has gone down, is off our screens.”
“Where did it go down?” James asked.
“The Florida Everglades.”
“UFO 2?” Garret asked.
“Still heading away. American fighter jets are moving to intercept, but I doubt they’ll catch it, at the speed it’s moving.”
“Let’s get ready to launch to the Everglades,” Allen said. “We need to recover that one, at least.”
“Allen’s right,” Garret said. “Get to Skyranger 1. We’ll launch as soon as it’s clear that UFO 2 is clear and not coming back.”
Chapter 28
When they entered the briefing room, the others were clustered around the big monitor in the wall. Kim Wagner was reporting information as it arrived on her console, updating the track that was crawling across the map on the screen.
“What’s the course now, Kim?” Garret asked. He had a phone on one ear, with a communications headset in the other, and looked like he was carrying on several conversations at once.
“The alien vessel is moving quickly over the Gulf of Mexico, heading north by northeast.”
Garret glanced over his shoulder at the members of Alpha as they entered the room. “Radar’s picked up an alien, small, moving fast,” he said, before turning back to the screen.
“Over the eastern states?” Catalina asked, looking at the trajectory that continued to evolve on the map.
“At its current course, it looks like it will pass over Florida, maybe South Carolina,” Kim said.
“Oh good, swamps,” Buzz muttered.
“That trajectory takes it over some heavily populated areas,” Catalina said.
“Rest assured, we will deal with it when it enters United States airspace,” Agent Drake said.
The pilot Ken Yushi was sitting on the briefing room table behind the knot of people around the viewer. “I don’t know, Agent. It’s moving real fast,” he said.
“Interceptor 1 is en route,” Garret announced. “Time to intercept, Kim?”
Kim entered a few calculations into her control console. A new track, highlighted in green, appeared on the map. “At current course and speed, nineteen minutes.”
“Shouldn’t we be in the air?” Jane asked.
“Well, I think we should,” Drake began, but she was cut off by Kim. “Wait! I am reading another track.”
“What?” Garret said. “Another UFO?”
Kim bent over her console. “Yes,” she finally said, after a few seconds. “Confirmed…”
“Course and speed?” Garret barked.
Kim looked up from her screen. “It’s heading… it’s heading right for us.”
“Here!” Grace exclaimed.
There was a stir of exclamations around the table. “Director, I need to attend to the missile battery,” Grace said.
“Go, Grace,” Garret said. She was gone in a flash, running before the outer door had slid fully open.
“Excellent,” James said. “We can wait for ‘em here, no need to fly.”
“What bout other one?” Vasily asked.
“The other one is still on its course,” Kim said. The track of the second alien ship had appeared on the screen, its path pointing like a dagger toward the small blue square that represented the Nevada base. “Interceptor 1 will be in range in twelve minutes.”
“What about Interceptor 2?” Yushi asked.
“Still being repaired,” Garret said.
“Should we be heading after the first?” Catalina asked. “The second could be a decoy to distract us.”
“Or maybe first is decoy, to draw us out before they attack,” Vasily said. “Or maybe is just one big coincidence.”
“Who knows what the hell is going on in those little gray heads of theirs,” Drake said.
“Anyway, is this not why we have two teams?” Vasily asked.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Cat added.
“If we launch now, they’ll spot the base for sure,” Drake said.
“The second alien’s course is shifting,” Kim reported. “It is… what is the English expression, to go back and forth?”
“I think ‘zig zag’ is what you’re looking for, doc,” Yushi said.
Grace’s voice came over the intercom. “Grace here. The missile battery is armed and ready.”
“Kim, status? Is UFO 2 heading here, or not?” Garret asked.
“It is continuing to ‘zig zag’, almost like a search pattern.”
“Range to target?” Garret asked.
“Seventy miles,” Kim returned.
Garret activated his communicator. “Grace, what’s the range on the missile battery?”
“Forty-five miles, give or take.”
“Kim, range to UFO 2?”
“Fifty miles, and closing.”
Garret placed his fists down on the table. “Then the question becomes, do we take the shot?” He looked up at the members of Alpha, who formed a line along the far side of the table.
“It not good if we can be stalemated like this,” Vasily said.
“What are you doing, asking them?” Drake said. “Of course you take the shot!”
“Kim?” Garret asked.
“Forty-two miles.”
“Enemy in range, but it’s a long shot, chief,” Grace’s voice came over the speaker.
“They want us to reveal our position,” Jane said.
“Oh, and your extensive experience tells you that, Swift,” Drake snapped.
“If missiles keeping it messing about doing nothing, I say, keep missiles as deterrent,” Vasily said.
“Kim?”
“UFO 1 is… forty-eight miles off. It’s moving away.”
“You blew your chance!” Drake hissed. “Now it will report back.”
“Yeah, but it has nothing to report,” Stan said.
On the eastern part of the map, the green line coming from the west had nearly bisected the red one coming up from the Gulf. “Interceptor 1 has engaged UFO 1!” Kim said.
There was a period of silence, as everyone there watched the lines running across the map, as though they could reveal what was happening in the skies hundreds of miles away. Finally, Kim bent over her console again. Letting out a held breath, she said, “Interceptor 1 has reported an Avalanche hit on UFO 1. The alien has gone down, is off our screens.”
“Where did it go down?” James asked.
“The Florida Everglades.”
“UFO 2?” Garret asked.
“Still heading away. American fighter jets are moving to intercept, but I doubt they’ll catch it, at the speed it’s moving.”
“Let’s get ready to launch to the Everglades,” Allen said. “We need to recover that one, at least.”
“Allen’s right,” Garret said. “Get to Skyranger 1. We’ll launch as soon as it’s clear that UFO 2 is clear and not coming back.”
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 9 (June 9, 2008)
Chapter 29
A little over three hours later, the Skyranger was descending over Florida, its engines going all-out as Alpha Team raced to reach the alien crash site. They had triangulated the alien’s location as best they could using Interceptor 1’s data and the information collected by the American radar stations, but that still left a lot of potential ground to cover.
“It’s dark as hell down there,” Ken said from the cockpit. “I asked about waiting until morning, but I think HQ is afraid of another alien ship coming around to pick up the pieces. Hope you brought a flashlight.”
“You got that blaster figured out, Vasily?” James said, indicating the long snub of the laser rifle clipped into the rack beside the Russian’s drop seat.
“I figure it out,” he said. There had been a lot of discussion about who would use the rifle and the latest laser pistol to come out of Grace’s workshop, but Vasily had finally ended the debate by taking the pistol and its powerpack, and thrusting them into Catalina’s hands. “Mother of god, you like freaking kids,” he growled. “Who has skills to use, use,” he said, taking the rifle and its heavy backpack power unit.
The Skyranger switched to its hybrid flight configuration, drifting over the target site a few thousand feet above the tangled forest below. “Scanning,” Ken said, “Damn, they got a lot of trees down there. I’ve got a hot zone on IR… There’s a clearing, a few klicks south of the site. I’ll put us down there, hang on, this could get a bit bumpy.”
The descent was as promised, but at least they didn’t hit anything, and soon Ken had landed the Skyranger, its deck tilted at a slight angle as its struts dug into the uneven surface below. As the hatch opened, Vasily handed out powerful LED lights from one of the lockers, which clipped onto their helmets for a bright source of illumination. James went around with a mechanical hypodermic unit, injecting each of them in turn with a formula that would offer some protection against the many known pathogens that infested the swamp. “Just try not to get wounded,” he told them. “It may get… complicated.”
Vasily was the first one out the hatch. The clearing was little more than a patch of raised ground that was surrounded on all side by spongy, mired terrain that extended as far as their lamps could reveal. The forest growth was dense, populated by the sounds of buzzing insects and the distant calls of larger things.
“We have long walk,” Vasily said, once they were all clear. “Let’s get going.”
“Let me use the sensor,” Catalina suggested, unlimbering the portable device.
“This is swamp,” Vasily pointed out. “Motion sensor likely detect everything.”
“I should be able to tell what is what, I think,” Catalina said, activating the device and panning it around in a half-circle oriented to the north. After a few seconds, she signed, and said, “It seems there is too much around. But there’s nothing man sized in range, I don’t think.”
They made their way into the swamp, their lamps forming bright spears that poked ahead of them as they moved. The ground was anything but firm, but they only had to go wading across one broad pool that never went further than waist-deep. They paused at the far side, Vasily grimacing as he cut a leech off his leg just above the top of his boot.
“This way,” Catalina whispered over their communicators.
They moved forward, the two women scouting ahead, the men following with guns ready. The going was slightly easier on the far side of the pool, and the ground rose slightly as they continued, although the saturated soil still sucked at their boots with every step.
“Something here,” Jane said, veering slightly off to the left. She prodded at something on the ground, only to stagger back as a cloud of noxious green gas seeped into the air from a cleft in the ground.
“Careful!” James said, hurrying forward to investigate. “Jane, come on over here, you look bad.” He took out one of the compact medical kits from the bag at his hip.
“That gas again!” Buzz yelled, fumbling in his pack for his gas mask.
“You need to be more damn careful,” Catalina said, checking the motion sensor again for any threats.
“What is that thing?” Vasily asked, carefully examining the object that lay in the cleft. The green gas was still seeping from it, a long cylindrical object that was half-buried in the mud. Catalina looked up and saw a pattern in the broken branches in the dense canopy above. “Looks like it fell from above,” she said.
Jane was breathing easier after James injected her with the contents of the medikit. “Be careful,” James said, “not too many of these left.”
“We mark it for cleanup crew, yes?” Vasily said, but Buzz had crawled forward, and giving the thin stream of leaking gas a wide berth, began examining the piece of alien debris.
After about a minute, there was a click. The others took a step back, but Buzz withdrew an object from the cylinder, a translucent tube that glowed faintly green. “Oh my god, this is heavy!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?” Catalina asked, as Buzz tried to get to his feet, his boots slipping on the slimy mud.
“Careful!” Vasily exclaimed. “Not drop in water!”
“Someone want to carry this?” Buzz said, clutching the cylinder awkwardly against his body.
“Don’t look at me, girlie here,” Catalina said.
Vasily slung his rifle and took it; Buzz winced as the Russian slung the heavy object over his shoulder with little apparent effort. “I carry back to Skyranger. You find way forward, yes?”
“Let’s not run off one at a time,” James said. “I’ll give Vas a hand carrying it.”
“I not be long, Skyranger is just over there. I think. You concentrate on finding path through swamp.”
An hour later found the five members of Alpha crouched behind a low berm of muddy ground and rotting plant matter that had gathered around the thick trunk of a fallen tree. Catalina had scouted out a viable path ahead through the swamp, although it had not been easy, with more murky pools and pits of clinging mud requiring careful attention to bypass safely. Now they watched in cover, at a spot just visible through the trees ahead.
“There’s the ship,” Catalina muttered. “But I swear I saw something moving up there.” Scanning the area through a pair of light-enhancing binoculars, she suddenly froze. “There,” she said, pointing to the northwest. “What the hell is that?”
“Huh? What we looking at? I not see,” Vasily said. Catalina passed him the binoculars. A dark, slender form appeared, half-visible through the tangled growth of the swamp.
Jane was looking at it through the scope of her sniper rifle. “It’s humanoid, but not human,” she said.
“It looked… part human, part snake.”
“Snake?” James asked. “You sure?”
“It has a sodding tail!” Catalina hissed.
Vasily stared though the binoculars. “It gone now. Maybe back inside ship.”
The Russian gestured, and they split into two groups, warily approaching the crashed ship from both flanks. Catalina and James moved around to the right, while Jane and Vasily moved left, with Buzz trailing behind. Catalina blended into the swamp, barely making a whisper as she crept forward, but James got his boot caught on some tangled growth, and stumbled into a bush that thrashed loudly before he could right himself. Ten paces ahead, Catalina heard him and froze.
She wasn’t the only one to hear him, as a long, sinuous form slithered forward out of the undergrowth ahead, emerging into view. Even in the darkness, they could see that it was an alien. It was nearly nine feet long, with humanoid arms jutting from a segmented, ophidian torso. A forked tongue probed from its fanged mouth, and a low hissing noise issued from it. It carried a snub-nosed, bulbous weapon, which it pointed at James, unleashing a series of plasma bursts that briefly transformed the darkness of the swamp into day, the energy blasts exploding into flashes of destruction as they struck the dense, tangled growth of the swamp. One vanished into the bush that James had gotten caught in, which exploded into a bright blaze of fire, enveloping the hapless medic within.
Chapter 29
A little over three hours later, the Skyranger was descending over Florida, its engines going all-out as Alpha Team raced to reach the alien crash site. They had triangulated the alien’s location as best they could using Interceptor 1’s data and the information collected by the American radar stations, but that still left a lot of potential ground to cover.
“It’s dark as hell down there,” Ken said from the cockpit. “I asked about waiting until morning, but I think HQ is afraid of another alien ship coming around to pick up the pieces. Hope you brought a flashlight.”
“You got that blaster figured out, Vasily?” James said, indicating the long snub of the laser rifle clipped into the rack beside the Russian’s drop seat.
“I figure it out,” he said. There had been a lot of discussion about who would use the rifle and the latest laser pistol to come out of Grace’s workshop, but Vasily had finally ended the debate by taking the pistol and its powerpack, and thrusting them into Catalina’s hands. “Mother of god, you like freaking kids,” he growled. “Who has skills to use, use,” he said, taking the rifle and its heavy backpack power unit.
The Skyranger switched to its hybrid flight configuration, drifting over the target site a few thousand feet above the tangled forest below. “Scanning,” Ken said, “Damn, they got a lot of trees down there. I’ve got a hot zone on IR… There’s a clearing, a few klicks south of the site. I’ll put us down there, hang on, this could get a bit bumpy.”
The descent was as promised, but at least they didn’t hit anything, and soon Ken had landed the Skyranger, its deck tilted at a slight angle as its struts dug into the uneven surface below. As the hatch opened, Vasily handed out powerful LED lights from one of the lockers, which clipped onto their helmets for a bright source of illumination. James went around with a mechanical hypodermic unit, injecting each of them in turn with a formula that would offer some protection against the many known pathogens that infested the swamp. “Just try not to get wounded,” he told them. “It may get… complicated.”
Vasily was the first one out the hatch. The clearing was little more than a patch of raised ground that was surrounded on all side by spongy, mired terrain that extended as far as their lamps could reveal. The forest growth was dense, populated by the sounds of buzzing insects and the distant calls of larger things.
“We have long walk,” Vasily said, once they were all clear. “Let’s get going.”
“Let me use the sensor,” Catalina suggested, unlimbering the portable device.
“This is swamp,” Vasily pointed out. “Motion sensor likely detect everything.”
“I should be able to tell what is what, I think,” Catalina said, activating the device and panning it around in a half-circle oriented to the north. After a few seconds, she signed, and said, “It seems there is too much around. But there’s nothing man sized in range, I don’t think.”
They made their way into the swamp, their lamps forming bright spears that poked ahead of them as they moved. The ground was anything but firm, but they only had to go wading across one broad pool that never went further than waist-deep. They paused at the far side, Vasily grimacing as he cut a leech off his leg just above the top of his boot.
“This way,” Catalina whispered over their communicators.
They moved forward, the two women scouting ahead, the men following with guns ready. The going was slightly easier on the far side of the pool, and the ground rose slightly as they continued, although the saturated soil still sucked at their boots with every step.
“Something here,” Jane said, veering slightly off to the left. She prodded at something on the ground, only to stagger back as a cloud of noxious green gas seeped into the air from a cleft in the ground.
“Careful!” James said, hurrying forward to investigate. “Jane, come on over here, you look bad.” He took out one of the compact medical kits from the bag at his hip.
“That gas again!” Buzz yelled, fumbling in his pack for his gas mask.
“You need to be more damn careful,” Catalina said, checking the motion sensor again for any threats.
“What is that thing?” Vasily asked, carefully examining the object that lay in the cleft. The green gas was still seeping from it, a long cylindrical object that was half-buried in the mud. Catalina looked up and saw a pattern in the broken branches in the dense canopy above. “Looks like it fell from above,” she said.
Jane was breathing easier after James injected her with the contents of the medikit. “Be careful,” James said, “not too many of these left.”
“We mark it for cleanup crew, yes?” Vasily said, but Buzz had crawled forward, and giving the thin stream of leaking gas a wide berth, began examining the piece of alien debris.
After about a minute, there was a click. The others took a step back, but Buzz withdrew an object from the cylinder, a translucent tube that glowed faintly green. “Oh my god, this is heavy!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?” Catalina asked, as Buzz tried to get to his feet, his boots slipping on the slimy mud.
“Careful!” Vasily exclaimed. “Not drop in water!”
“Someone want to carry this?” Buzz said, clutching the cylinder awkwardly against his body.
“Don’t look at me, girlie here,” Catalina said.
Vasily slung his rifle and took it; Buzz winced as the Russian slung the heavy object over his shoulder with little apparent effort. “I carry back to Skyranger. You find way forward, yes?”
“Let’s not run off one at a time,” James said. “I’ll give Vas a hand carrying it.”
“I not be long, Skyranger is just over there. I think. You concentrate on finding path through swamp.”
An hour later found the five members of Alpha crouched behind a low berm of muddy ground and rotting plant matter that had gathered around the thick trunk of a fallen tree. Catalina had scouted out a viable path ahead through the swamp, although it had not been easy, with more murky pools and pits of clinging mud requiring careful attention to bypass safely. Now they watched in cover, at a spot just visible through the trees ahead.
“There’s the ship,” Catalina muttered. “But I swear I saw something moving up there.” Scanning the area through a pair of light-enhancing binoculars, she suddenly froze. “There,” she said, pointing to the northwest. “What the hell is that?”
“Huh? What we looking at? I not see,” Vasily said. Catalina passed him the binoculars. A dark, slender form appeared, half-visible through the tangled growth of the swamp.
Jane was looking at it through the scope of her sniper rifle. “It’s humanoid, but not human,” she said.
“It looked… part human, part snake.”
“Snake?” James asked. “You sure?”
“It has a sodding tail!” Catalina hissed.
Vasily stared though the binoculars. “It gone now. Maybe back inside ship.”
The Russian gestured, and they split into two groups, warily approaching the crashed ship from both flanks. Catalina and James moved around to the right, while Jane and Vasily moved left, with Buzz trailing behind. Catalina blended into the swamp, barely making a whisper as she crept forward, but James got his boot caught on some tangled growth, and stumbled into a bush that thrashed loudly before he could right himself. Ten paces ahead, Catalina heard him and froze.
She wasn’t the only one to hear him, as a long, sinuous form slithered forward out of the undergrowth ahead, emerging into view. Even in the darkness, they could see that it was an alien. It was nearly nine feet long, with humanoid arms jutting from a segmented, ophidian torso. A forked tongue probed from its fanged mouth, and a low hissing noise issued from it. It carried a snub-nosed, bulbous weapon, which it pointed at James, unleashing a series of plasma bursts that briefly transformed the darkness of the swamp into day, the energy blasts exploding into flashes of destruction as they struck the dense, tangled growth of the swamp. One vanished into the bush that James had gotten caught in, which exploded into a bright blaze of fire, enveloping the hapless medic within.
