X-COM (updated M-W-F)

[Lazybones]

Session 22 (September 22, 2008)
Chapter 90


“What the hell was that thing?” Jane asked, as they made their way quickly down another city street strewn with wreckage. Most of the damage here had been wrought by panicked residents rather than the aliens, with an SUV piled up onto the back of a smashed Honda, opposite a broken hydrant that sent a constant plume of water up into the air.

“We not seen anything like this before,” Vasily said, leading them again as they hurried to their next destination. Ken had reported that the Americans were quickly cordoning off the areas of the city where the alien pods had struck, and that police and military units had already neutralized several groups of snakemen after suffering heavy losses. Shortly after their confrontation with the infected man and the strange monster that had inhabited its body, the pilot had forwarded an intercepted signal about an alien sighting in the parking garage of a nearby mall that was just four blocks from their position.

“You okay, Cat?” James asked again, as they crossed another deserted intersection and saw the glitzy exterior of the mall another block ahead.

“Yeah, luckily that thing didn’t get a good grip on me,” she said. “Just a few scratches.” But she blinked and leaned against a wall as they came to the end of the block, feeling a bit dizzy.

The mall was all but empty, with just deserted cars scattered about the street. They could see the entrance to the parking garage, which extended under the structure; there was a police car in front of it, its lights flashing. The policeman looked to be barely out of college, and his expression on seeing them was a mixture of confusion and relief.

“What situation?” Vasily asked.

“You guys military? Man, I’m glad to see you. I got a report that there was something here, I thought I saw it, went down into the garage. What the hell… aliens, man!”

“Snakeman?” Jane asked.

“Man, I’m not sure what it was. You guys going in there?”

The Alphas exchanged a quick look. “Yeah, we going in there,” Vasily said.

The parking garage was dark, with all but the emergency lights deactivated, leaving the entire area cloaked in deep shadows. Most of the shoppers apparently hadn’t had a chance to get down here to recover their cars during the evacuation; rows and rows of vehicles filled the place in orderly ranks. The booths where people paid their parking fees upon exiting were empty.

Jane and Vasily turned on the LED lights mounted on their powered armor, the bright beams driving deep into the darkness.

“Catalina?” Vasily asked. “Catalina?”

“Oh? Sorry. Yeah, I’m getting something… moving… fast…”

They heard a skittering noise, and something flashed across their view to the right. When they turned that way, however, all they saw was another row of cars.

“I don’t like this,” Mary said.

Vasily unlimbered his stun rod. “I want to try stun, if this new alien,” he said.

They made their way deeper into the garage, slowing as they entered the radius of one of the emergency lights, moving faster in the darkened spaces in between.

“Catalina…”

“I… I’m not sure. It’s here…”

“Where the hell are you?” Vasily muttered. He didn’t see the dark form that crept between two SUVs to his right. As he turned away, it rose up out from the shadows, looming over him, a massive thing of claws and angles and dark slickness that oozed along its armored body.

Mary, turning back toward him, saw it, and screamed.

Vasily spun around, but the creature seized him in its claws, and flung him across the garage. He hit a concrete pylon six feet off the ground, hard enough to crack the material, then fell hard onto a sedan, crushing its roof under his weight.

The alien let out a deafening screech, and surged into the ranks of the other Alphas, tearing and sweeping.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Any more screen shots? I'd love to see what they looked like in the NWN engine. Your description of it moving quickly through the garage brings images from the Alien's movies to mind. Although there all the scittering was the little face grabbers.

 

[Lazybones]

Here you go. These are toolset shots rather than action shots.

1. A chryssalid in the garage, next to a burning car.
2. Mutons in a forest environment.
3. Ethereals in an alien ship.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

That Chrysalid looks really nasty. Are those heavy plasma cannons the Muton's are holding?

 

[Lazybones]

Are those heavy plasma cannons the Muton's are holding?

Yep. Low ammo capacity, but each shot definitely hurt.

* * * * *


Session 22 (September 22, 2008)
Chapter 91


Jane brought her plasma rifle up quickly, but before she could shoot the alien slammed her with a claw, driving her armored body into the back of a car with enough force to crumple the bumper and deeply indent the trunk. It loomed over her, slamming down the other claw, bracketing her neck and pinning her there. Catalina, standing not three feet away, saw something in its hand shoot out between the claws and stab at her armored torso, a tendril that slashed against the breastplate of her heavy armor but failed to penetrate.

She did all she could do, shooting the alien point-blank in the side. The plasma bolt hit and flashed brightly, but the alien barely seemed to notice.

Hadrian’s carbine and James’s plasma rifle both discharged, filling the garage with light and noise, but doing little more to harm the creature. But it flung Jane aside, knocking her into Hadrian and sending both of them rolling to the ground. The thing turned toward Catalina, and for a moment the agent froze, looking at certain death looming over her. But oddly, it didn’t even pause, turning past her toward James, who shot it again, the bolt splashing across its chest. It lunged at the doctor, who almost fell as he tried in vain to escape its assault.

With a roar, Vasily leapt into the alien from behind, the sheer impact of five hundred pounds of Russian and armor knocking it off its course. The human and alien staggered back together, Vasily jamming his stun rod into it, looking for some vulnerability in its chitinous body. The weapon flashed, but appeared to have no effect on the creature, which slashed at Vasily with its long claws.

“Vas, watch its claws!” Catalina warned. “Something bad!”

The Russian held his own for about two seconds, then the alien caught him with a solid blow that lifted him off his feet and drove him back two paces. Again it pursued, lunging with a blow that might have taken his head off, had it connected. As it was, he barely got out of the way, and still took a grazing hit across the shoulders that nearly put him on his face.

“Shoot it!” He yelled. “SHOOT IT IN HEAD!”

The other Alphas responded, driving at the creature from all sides. Catalina jumped up onto the hood of a big Oldsmobile, putting her at just about eye-level with the creature. She fired at the spot where its head met its body, the plasma forming a wreath around its neck as it exploded. That was followed by shots from Jane, Hadrian, and James, who all shot at roughly the same spot, until they could barely see for the bright pulse of superheated gas that formed a plume over its head. Mary shot at it as well, but her blast went wide, sending down an echoing plume from the roof over its head.

Through it all the alien kept attacking, but Vasily held his ground. He lunged again with his stun rod, trying to use it to keep the alien at bay, but it knocked the weapon flying with a sweep of its claws, almost taking off the Russian’s arm in the bargain. Vasily growled and reached for his pistol, but the alien lurched in and seized his head in one massive claw. The thing bore down, crushing him under its weight, driving him to his knees. Vasily could hear the alien alloys cracking under the pressure, and his VDU scrambled and died. Something sloshed against his faceplate, slapping hard against the rigid plastic, which mercifully held up against the abuse.

It lasted for maybe a second or two, which felt like an eternity. Then there was a bright flash and the pressure eased. He tore free from the grip of the alien’s claw and fell onto his back, breathing heavily.

“Are you all right?” he heard Mary asking.

“No, no…” he said, taking a long, shuddering breath. He pulled himself up enough to see what was going on. There was an oily slick covering his faceplate, with the stink of it seeping through the cracks in his helmet. Grimacing in revulsion, he pulled it off and greedily drank in a deep breath of fresher air.

The monster lay unmoving on the floor in front of him, its head a charred wreck, blasted into char from the point-blank fire of the other Alphas. The stench rising from it was terrific. Everyone seemed okay, although Jane was still a bit unsteady, and Catalina was leaning against a car, the visor on her own helmet up.

“Um, you don’t look so hot,” Jane said to her.

“I don’t feel… uurgh,” she said, clutching her stomach and bending low. She voided the contents of her stomach.

“Did it get you?” James asked, taking out a syringe of antibiotics.

Catalina shook her head. “No… no, it didn’t… it didn’t touch me.” She looked pale, and her hands shook as James injected the contents of the syringe into her arm.

Mary was helping Vasily, and applied the medikit she’d offered earlier, injecting it into one of the access ports built into his armor. The Russian felt like he’d been wrestling with a bear, but he forced himself to get up, grimacing anew as a fresh barrage of aches and pains asserted themselves. “Sky—Lightning, come in, Lightning,” he said, activating his communicator.

He could barely hear the pilot’s voice; likely the structure above them interfered with the signal. “Come in, Alpha? Reading you.”

“Ken, We got alien, it new kind. Dead now.” He looked over at Catalina, who was still being helped by James. “I think we need medical evac here, over.”

“Roger that. Can you get to the roof? I don’t think I can get into the street there.”

“Meet you there,” Vasily said.

“Elevator over there,” Hadrian said, pointing to one of the walls nearby. “I’ll check and see if the power’s still up, or if there’s stairs nearby.”

James had followed up his treatment of Catalina with a medikit, but the agent looked worse, and nearly fell as she tried to stand up. “Uuuhh…”

“We need to get up to the roof, Ken pick us up there,” Vasily said. “We can get you to base, or closer medical facility if needed.”

James stepped in and grabbed onto Catalina. “Hey, not the time for a cuddle, doc,” she said, but she nearly collapsed, and Jane had to step in and take her other arm.

“It’s working!” Hadrian yelled from the open elevator. He held it for them as they hurried up, James and Jane all but carrying Catalina between them. Vasily came last, but hesitated as the others packed into the elevator.

“Vas?” James asked.

“You go, I think I too heavy,” he said. “I take stairs, meet you up top.”

They met again in the stairwell a minute later in any case, as the elevator did not go all the way up to the roof. The mall itself was deserted, with discarded shopping bags, dropped food, and other signs of an hasty exit. The door at the top of the stairs was locked, but one blow from Vasily’s strength-augmented arm burst the lock, and they emerged onto the rooftop of the mall.

The Lightning was visible above them, circling down toward a marked-out landing pad a short distance away. They started in that direction, but had barely covered twenty feet before Catalina groaned and bent forward, spewing out a mixture of puke and blood that splattered on the floor in front of her. She let out a sharp cry and doubled over. “Feel… hot,” she managed to say.

“Can’t you carry her to the aircraft?” Mary asked.

“She’s going into shock,” James said, quickly digging into his medical bag. “She won’t make it to a hospital, I have to treat her now.”

“She’s running a fever,” Jane said, carefully removing her helmet. She pulled clear, giving Mary room to kneel on the other side of the fallen agent, opposite James.

“Help me get this breastplate off,” James said. Once the bulky armor was clear, he took Catalina’s knife and efficiently cut away part of her uniform, revealing a noticeably swollen abdomen. As they watched, they saw something pulse out, as though someone were punching her from inside.

“Stomach,” Catalina moaned, between dry heaves that left her lips and chin speckled with blood.

“Hold her down!” James ordered. As Jane took hold of her shoulders, he met Mary’s eyes. “We have to do something now,” the Indian doctor said.

“Aughhh!” Catalina screamed. “Hurts.”

“The hell?” Vasily asked, unable to clearly see what was going on. “What we do? Get her back to… we got time?”

“No,” Mary said. “We should get that out of her right now.” This time, there was no hesitation in her voice.

James looked at her again, and nodded. His surgical kit was laid out beside them on the rooftop. “Go ahead. I’ll support.”

Mary picked up a scalpel, and after taking a deep breath, cut Catalina’s belly wide open.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Okay, my memory needs a jog. In the original, when you got whacked by a chrysalid you turned into a zombie and when you killed the zombie another chrysalid emerged. So what was the thing that popped out of the old guy/zombie and is now threatening to pop out of Cat? Or is that your very wicked description for and emerging/forming chrysalid?

 

[ejja_1]

And the bass goes BUMP BUMP shsssss BUMP BUMP

She must have had the fish........

 

[Lazybones]

Okay, my memory needs a jog. In the original, when you got whacked by a chrysalid you turned into a zombie and when you killed the zombie another chrysalid emerged. So what was the thing that popped out of the old guy/zombie and is now threatening to pop out of Cat? Or is that your very wicked description for and emerging/forming chrysalid?

Chryssalids emerge from their hosts immediately able to implant an embryo into a new host. Catalina was implanted by the young chryssalid that grabbed onto her arm after erupting out of the infected citizen a few posts back.

* * * * *

Session 22 (September 22, 2008)
Chapter 92


Catalina lay intubated and sedated in a quarantine bed in the medical lab at HQX, the soft ping of a heartbeat monitor accompanying the gentle whoosh of the machine that aided her breathing. From behind a panel of molded plastic Vasily stood watching her, a grim look on his face.

“Is she going to be all right?”

Vasily turned to see Ama Ngunyi, who still looked rather the worse for wear for her own recent experience with alien weaponry. The African woman walked with a noticeable limp, and she carried a small medical monitoring unit clipped to the collar of her tunic, which was only slightly more substantial than a surgical gown.

Vasily grunted. “Doctor say so. Nothing permanently damaged, at least not beyond our new medical technology.”

“I will keep watch, if you like.”

He grunted again, but did not leave his vantage. The two watched together in silence, for a few moments. “Where other Beta Team members?” he finally asked. “They check out already, or…”

“They took Perez,” Ama said. “They treated him, but he just… his eyes, they were dead. He and Svienn were good friends. No one should have to watch that done to anyone…. What they did to him…”

“That… hm. Beta going to be okay?”

“I don’t know. Not much left of us. With Svienn, and now Alyssa…”

Vasily shifted slightly. “What?”

Ama’s eyes widened. “They… they didn’t tell you?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, gods, I’m sorry. I know you and she…”

“What?” he repeated, with more intensity as he turned to face her. She looked away, across the lab, not meeting his eyes.

“This place. So much sadness here,” she said. “It was right around when you were leaving on your mission. She… she put a gun to her chin, and pulled the trigger. I’m so sorry. I thought they would have told you.”

Vasily blinked. He was saved from having to say anything by his communicator buzzing in his pocket. He opened it up to see a short e-mail from Garret.

FROM: MICHAEL GARRET, X-COM DIRECTOR-LIAISON
TO: MEMBERS, ALPHA TEAM

We just intercepted an alien communication, and I thought you should know. The alien battleship is returning to Earth, and will be stopping at the Antarctica base in 78 hours. The mission is a go, team.

Vasily looked at Ama, who was still waiting there, a sympathetic expression on her face. He glanced back at Catalina one last time. “Excuse me,” he said, heading back toward the base, and the preparations that would have to be made.

 

[Rikandur Azebol]

What they do at this X-COM giving them pistols ? Where is the shrink with taser ?

By the way, excellent LB. Even if more light-toned than my favorite first part of Rappan Athuk.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Here's to hoping their second base assault goes better than the first. And it looks like it's time for the Beta's to do some new recruiting. What was the reason you had Alyssa take her own life?