X-COM (updated M-W-F)

[Lazybones]

Session 25 (October 20, 2008)
Chapter 110


Hadrian Jones heard someone calling his name. The awareness was unwelcome, for it brought with it a wave of pain that started in the small of his back and radiated upward, eventually meeting up with a separate tendril of agony that trailed down from the base of his skull.

“Jones!”

He blinked, and found that he was staring up into the sky. It was blue, startlingly so, clear of clouds for as far as he could see. Someone had taken off his visor, and he could smell the unpleasant ozone of burned plastic underlaid with the more pedestrian stink of roasted flesh. He tried to move, but could only fumble his arm, accompanied by a noise of grinding actuators.

Vasily stepped into view, looking down at him. “How you… how you survive that?” he asked.

Hadrian tried to shrug, but it didn’t accomplish anything but to stir up the pain in new ways. “God likes me,” he managed.

“Doctor?” Vasily asked.

“I’ve done all I can here.” Hadrian could hear James’s voice, although he couldn’t see him through the opening in his visor. “His vitals are stable, he should be okay to move.”

“Hold on there, we’ll get you a stretcher,” Vasily said.

Hadrian shook his head, again not something he could easily manage in the blasted suit. “Help me up,” he said.

After a slight pause, Vasily nodded, and grabbed onto the Marine’s armor, lifting him to his feet. Hadrian saw that Vasily’s suit had taken a beating as well, with black flash-burns covering him from hips to helmet. He looked past the Russian at the alien ship, which was now a good sixty yards away. The ship was now little more than a blasted hulk that continued to pour a stream of ugly black smoke into the sky.

“No commander?” Hadrian asked.

“It looks like it was a trap, all of it,” Catalina said.

“We’d better get out of here,” James said. “Once they figure out it didn’t work, they may decide to follow up.”

“Did you see anything inside ship?” Vasily asked. “Before it blow?”

“Just pods, a lot of pods. For mutons, looked like.”

“Must be how they got so many onto such a small ship,” Jane said.

“We’d better tell Drake her intel sucks,” James said. He fell in on one side of Hadrian, while Vasily took his arm on the other side. The Marine was in no shape to protest; he could barely move at all in his crippled armor.

“So, would this be a win, loss, or, um, draw?” Mary asked.

Vasily glanced back at the ship, which continued to burn. “Depend how you count it,” he said.

“We survived, so it’s a win in my book,” Hadrian said, as they returned to the Lightning.

 

[Lazybones]

Next week: Base Attack. There's a good number of posts left, but only a few more missions until the finale.

* * * * *

Interlude: Preparation (October 21-28, 2008)

The e-mail arrived the morning after the Alphas’ return from the busted Australian mission.

FROM: DR. KIMBERLY WAGNER, X-COM RESEARCH LEAD
TO: MEMBERS, ALPHA TEAM
CC: MICHAEL GARRET, GRACE THELON BELUCA, AGENT INISE DRAKE
RE: Research/Manufacturing Progress Report

Again our work continues on schedule, and all current projects have been completed. The alien ambush at the Great Barrier Reef has forced our hand; we now must continue with our original project of securing an alien commander through an all-out attack on an enemy base. By decrypting the captured alien navigation data from the last few alien ships, we have identified a primary base in the mountains of western China. All that we have learned about the aliens suggests that a commander will be found within this facility. Expect intense resistance. Any Chinese forces encountered in the region must be considered alien allies and should be terminated.

* * *

HQX was engulfed in a flurry of activity as the date for the base attack raid drew nearer. Security is ratcheted up to its highest level ever, and tensions are tight. When a few physicists in the research labs get into a fistfight over a disputed centrifuge, you know that tensions are tight.

Alpha Team's every waking minute was scripted. Joan Beauvais implemented a new training regimen, based on the data recovered from the Antarctica base computer and the latest data from the Ethereal analysis team. The counselor was patient but uncompromising; more than one member of Alpha Team stalked from the banks of testing apparatus and training devices in frustration, only to find the only door leading out of the lab sealed and unresponsive. For two hours each day, the members of Alpha Team worked at developing their latent mental abilities. The results were impressive, as all of the team members showed improvement—in some cases dramatic improvement—since the last round of Psi tests.

Finally the day arrived. Alpha Team's gear was laid out on a long table in one of the research labs. The new advanced interface for the medical production unit was put to hard use; 25 medikits were produced. Mary's work synthesizing the regeneration serum resulted in 5 doses, lying innocently next to the medikits in portable injectors. Jane's work on the HWP team resulted in two repair kits, sitting in squat, folding cases. Vasily and Cat spent days sequestered in an unused lab, poring over the alien grenade. The clean-up teams brought several cases full of junked components taken from the multiple alien ships that Alpha had claimed. Curses had been overheard coming from the room in several languages over the week, but by its end, the pair had three working alien grenades, in addition to the intact sample that was originally provided to the research team for study.

(ooc: All skill rolls passed, +100xp to Jane, Mary, Vasily, and Cat.)

Even as the Alphas started to arrive, more technicians and researchers continued to bring more gear to the table. Mary opened a sealed case containing a hypo filled with the Chryssalid countermeasure, which—if it worked as advertised—would kill an injected parasite before it could “hatch”. Cat’s armor had been fitted with a special harness to carry the bulky Blaster Launcher, with several snub rounds loaded inside. Doctor Sandesh delivered a new Plasma Tank, and as the team gathered in the hangar to board the Lightning, he hurries into the room with a second HWP trailing behind him, a new configuration, lack a turret but with an odd bulge at the top where the weapons array should be.

"This one is special for your trip," he told them. "It has the full AI suite and will follow you on command, but it has no weapons. Or rather, only one; an atomic warhead. It is set to a 10-minute delay, which can be altered by any of you via voice-print recognition. Once you have captured the alien commander and are ready to depart, activate the countdown and leave... swiftly."

NOTE: In case you are interested, here were the group’s Psi rolls for this week. They also completed a research project to boost everyone’s scores.

Will save vs. DC15 (+1 per point >14 on roll)
+1 to roll for in-character posting.
Advanced Psi Research: +5 to all Psi Training scores.

Jane: roll (16 +11 +1) +5 = +19 bonus
Cat: roll (12 +6 +1) +5 = +10 bonus
Vasily: roll (4 +5 +1) +5 = +5 bonus
Mary: roll (20 +12) +5 = +23 bonus
James: roll (8 +12) +5 = +11 bonus
Hadrian: roll (11 +9) +5 = +11 bonus

 

[Lazybones]

Many of my regular readers have expressed support in the past for me getting out there and publishing my work outside of EnWorld. I just wanted to let you know that I have published a novella on the Smashwords Web site as an e-book. Smashwords lets you submit a file and makes the e-book available in most of the formats out there. The novella is placed in a custom setting of my own creation and tells the story of a young wizard who participates in a magical competition that goes fundamentally wrong, pitting him and his fellow competitors against a deadly maze in a struggle for survival. The novella is an introduction to the setting, which I am developing further in a novel that I am finishing up now and hope to release by the end of the year.

The novella, The Labyrinth, is completely free; I will probably charge $2 for the novel itself when it comes out. The story in the novella is completely separate from the novel and you won’t need to read one to appreciate the other.

The novella is posted at Smashwords - The Labyrinth - A book by Kenneth McDonald.

Thanks again to everyone who has posted in appreciation of my writing over the years.

Back to X-COM!

* * * * *

Session 26 (October 27, 2008)
Chapter 111


Doctor Wagner’s voice came to them over the speakers in their helmets, as a technician double-checked the harnesses holding the Alphas and their weapons in place. Between the operatives in their heavy armor, the extra gear they were carrying, and the two HWPs, the Lightning’s passenger and cargo compartments were packed full. And that was with one seat empty; James had taken sick with a nasty case of flu the day before. That hadn’t stopped him from the mission prep, but during armoring he’d collapsed, tearing two muscles in his rotator cuff. He would be fine in a few days, but it had been an inauspicious start to the mission, and there hadn’t been time to get someone else fitted and briefed in time for the launch. Delay, in this case, hadn’t even been an option.

“All right,” Wagner told them. “The base is located in the mountains of southwestern China, about 125 miles from Tibet.” They’d all gone through the briefings, had pored over satellite pictures taken from before the alien invasion, but it was still reassuring to hear the German scientist’s calm voice relay their objectives once more. “It’s going to be cold, and rough ground, but not many bystanders.”

“Now you tell us,” Catalina said, grimacing slightly as the tech tugged on the harness that all but locked her into the jump chair. There was a quick-release catch, but it would be of little use if an alien plasma cannon hit the Lightning. “Could have put on thermals,” she said, forcing levity into her voice.

“Your armor will protect you adequately against the elements,” Wagner said.

“Is good chance this is oldest alien base on planet,” Vasily said, as the aircraft’s engines powered up, the familiar whine vibrating through the seats until they could feel it in their bones. “They had lot of time to make secure.”

Catalina sighed. Wagner’s voice was replaced by Garret’s, his tone firm and decisive. “The mission is simple. The main objective is the Base Commander, to be taken alive. Secondary objective is to obliterate the base. You’ll be bringing the best Earth has to offer. Give them hell.”

The Lightning’s engines roared to full power, and the craft lifted into the air, tilting forward as soon as Ken had cleared the hangar entrance, blasting off into the predawn sky over HQX.

They took an arctic insertion route, rising up high above the curve of the Earth, crossing down across Russia before approaching Chinese airspace. The aircraft’s velocity approached that of a spacecraft, its Elerium-powered engines giving the Lightning a sustained rate of acceleration that a normal craft could not have managed, its hull of alien alloys allowing it to maintain that speed without breaking up. It was neither a smooth nor a quiet ride, and there was little conversation among the Alphas as they made their way into hostile territory.

“We’re about to go into radio silence,” Ken said, while they were still somewhere over the Arctic Ocean. “We’ve got a final message from HQ, patching it in.”

“Wagner here, team. Alien activity still shows black across the board, no signatures, no ships. Ken will ping with the hyperwave once you get close; hopefully you should have at least some idea what you’re up against.”

“They’re not expecting us, are they?” Catalina asked.

There was a brief delay as the message, traveling at the speed of light, made it across the hidden relay stations to HQX. “We don’t know what to expect, Agent De Farrago. But we know that they like to surprise us.”

There was another brief pause, and when Wagner resumed, her voice had changed slightly, an uncharacteristic hint of feeling creeping into her tone. “Remember what’s at stake. We can handle not destroying the base, if we get the commander. If this mission fails, we may have no choice but to launch blind against the Mars base. And that would turn a one in a hundred into a one in a million shot.”

Ken’s voice chimed in over the comm. “And since Alpha’s the ‘one’ I think that’s a bad bet.”

“Yes, thank you, Ken,” Wagner said. “You’re crossing the horizon from the last relay station; we’re losing the tightband connection. Good luck, Alpha. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is counting on you.”

Her voice faded, and Ken’s returned. “Okay. We’re going to be taking it down to the deck, coming down over Siberia, then down through the central Asian steppes to the target. Stay strapped in; when I say, ‘on the deck,’ I mean it.”

Mary began, “What does ‘on the deck’…” but was cut off as the floor dropped out from under them, and the Lightning plummeted toward the Earth.

The descent was followed by a series of jerks and twists as the Lightning followed an erratic course southward, with Ken taking them low across a landscape that they, perhaps mercifully, could not see. By the time they approached the landing zone, and the colored yellow indicator flashed in the passenger cabin, even Vasily looked a little green.

“Coming up on final approach,” Ken said. “We’ll be there in eight minutes.”

Vasily led them in an ammo check, a final pass of gear that had been checked and rechecked in Nevada, until every round and power cell had been accounted for. But it helped to steady them, as Ken continued their rapid approach to the target area.

“Showing a peak energy signature to the south,” Ken reported. “Pinging Hyperwave Decoder… Damn, base is shielded, not getting… wait… got a match. Looks like mutons.”

“Grah, mutons,” Vasily said. His hand tapped the butt of the plasma cannon strapped in next to his seat; he’d finally given up his autocannon for the more reliable firepower of the alien weapon.

“You know,” Catalina began, “I’m not sure what to do about…”

She was cut off as the Lightning jerked hard to the right, as though it had been kicked hard by a giant. The Alphas were jerked hard against their harnesses as the entire aircraft tilted over hard to the right, sirens sounding as something hard and fundamental cracked, and then a blinding surge of cold air was streaming through the compartment, accompanied by a rush of sound and chaos that sounded like the end of everything.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

You know a mission is going to be rough when even the landing will be questionable. I guess the aliens got their own base defenses. That or the welcoming party has arrived.

 

[Lazybones]

Coming up with cliffhangers was easy for this mission.

* * * * *

Session 26 (October 27, 2008)
Chapter 112


Outside air rushed into the Lightning as the craft veered roughly to the side.

“KEN!” Vasily yelled into his communicator. The other Alphas could do nothing but hold on, as they bounced back and forth in their harnesses.

The aircraft’s tilt extended to almost ninety degrees, then it eased back, with a reassuring pressure under them as it gained more altitude. Ken’s voice hissed over their helmet speakers. “We’re all right… we’re still here.”

“They have missiles or something?” Vasily asked.

“One of those blaster shells, I think. Just missed us… Better watch it down there… going down… engines are Red, but I’ll put you down intact.”

The Lightning switched to VTOL mode, and again they were descending. They could just make out the line of a mountain through the gash in the hull, then the green of trees, and then they were down, snow blowing up around the aircraft to obscure their view.

“Base is south… good luck, team!” Ken told them, as the Lightning’s engines abruptly sputtered and died.

“If they shot at us, they knew we’re coming,” Catalina said, as they filed out of the damaged craft. Ken emerged from the cockpit, a laser pistol at his hip, and headed for the damaged engines.

“Can you actually fix these?” James asked.

“I’d rather Grace was here, but since she’s not, I’ll have to give it my best,” Ken said. “Don’t take too long, eh? Intel says there’s no PLA installations within a hundred miles, and the Lightning’s systems are cloaked, but I don’t like the idea of spending the night alone out here.”

“We be as quick as can be,” Vasily said. He turned and saw that Jane and Hadrian had gotten the two HWPs out of their bay in the Lightning’s belly. His eyes lingered on the distended bulge of the one carrying the bomb. “Move out, spread out,” he said. He gestured for Catalina to take point, the agent moving forward into the trees, her plasma pistol held close against her hip in one hand, her motion sensor in the other.

They headed into the forest, the HWPs driving a path through the shallow snow. They’d covered only a few hundred meters of ground from the Lightning when the plasma tank chirped, and a charging indicator in the back of the vehicle’s turret began to glow.

“Plasma tank seen something I think,” Vasily said.

They moved forward and found Catalina waiting for them behind a low rise. They left the tanks in place and moved up to join her, crouching behind a line of boulders covered with a light dusting of fresh snow.

“Muton, there,” Catalina said, gesturing toward a point between the trees ahead.

Vasily activated the zoom on his VDU. “Yah, I see,” he said.

“Two,” Catalina said, nodding to the right, where the ground rose in a gentle slope to a hilltop summit maybe forty or fifty yards higher than their current vantage.

“Any way around?” Hadrian asked.

Catalina shook her head. “The ground is much rougher to the sides. The tanks would not make it even if we could. And it definitely looks like they’re guarding something up there.”

“I say we go up here,” Vasily said. He looked to either side, evaluating, and nodded. “This good cover. Catalina, Hadrian, you stay here, set up for cover. Others go around those trees to left. Once we start shooting, send up plasma tank.”

“Careful,” Catalina told him.

Vasily, Mary, and Jane fell back and moved into the cover of the trees, approaching the hill from the left. Vasily put Jane into a position where she could cover the entire rise with her rifle, then he crept forward toward the closer of the two mutons, ordering Mary to stay low and back behind him. As the ascent grew steeper they could periodically catch glimpses of the green suits of the mutons, standing out garishly against the whites, grays, and browns of the hillside.

“Why don’t they attack?” Mary whispered. “I can’t believe they didn’t see us land.”

Vasily shushed her—there was no guarantee that the aliens couldn’t intercept even their short-range suit comms—and gestured toward a boulder slightly ahead and to the right. He went straight ahead, creeping up behind a fallen tree, unlimbering his heavy plasma, his eyes fixed on the nearest muton, which had remained where it had been since they’d first spotted it, staring vacantly down the hill, ignoring the Russian who was now within fifty meters of its position.

“Now you get surprise,” he muttered, aiming down the sights Grace had installed on the alien-built weapon. He could feel the power building within the gun, and closed his eyes a moment before the bright burst of plasma streaked out. It caught the muton in the hip, punching a hole in its armored body, but he wasn’t surprised when it not only remained standing, but turned toward him, lifting its own cannon.

But before it could shoot, a volley of fire from the other Alphas blasted up the slope. Two bright plasma bursts enveloped the muton, knocking it down but not out, the alien fumbling as it tried to both hold onto its weapon and recover its footing. The second alien that Catalina had spotted was firing toward her and Hadrian’s position, but Vasily doubted it would get a hit in the good cover they had. Then he heard the mechanical sounds of the plasma HWP, a moment before it added its own firepower to the battle, firing a blast that exploded a tree a scant four feet from the second muton. The alien shifted fire toward the tank, but staggered as a blast that had to have come from Hadrian’s gun slammed into its chest.

Vasily shot the first muton again, but it still managed to rise into a crouch. It lifted its cannon—amazingly, in one hand—and fired, not at Vasily, but at Mary, who was shooting wildly with her plasma pistol. She saw it and tried to duck back into cover, but the plasma bolt caught her high on the shoulder, knocking her roughly over onto her back. She bounced on the rocks and slid a good five feet before landing in a drift, dazed. As Vasily shot the alien yet again, he glanced back to see her try to get up, exposing herself again to the alien’s line of sight. A shower of wooden splinters exploded ahead of him as the alien blasted the log sheltering him, but the shot failed to penetrate to him.

“Move back down hill!” Vasily yelled at Mary, rising up just enough to squeeze off another shot at the muton. He cursed as the shot missed, transforming a patch of snow into superheated steam. He ducked back before the alien could return fire, but it didn’t get a chance, as a plasma bolt caught it under the chin, and it finally went down, its head barely attached to its body.

The second muton was likewise in bad shape; it had scored a hit on the HWP, which had stopped, but was continuing to fire. The distraction cost the alien, as Catalina and Hadrian continued to pour fire into it, blasting slowly and gradually through its armor. Hadrian finally scored a hit that penetrated its side, flashing white-hot plasma into its chest cavity, searing the only slightly more vulnerable organs beneath. The alien started to turn, lifting its gun toward the new target, but couldn’t manage it. It fell over heavily to the side. Hadrian kept it in his sights, intending to make sure of it, but before he could shoot Catalina looked past him, toward the right flank of the hill, and saw something that made her eyes widen.

“Launcher!” she yelled, but too late, as the muton fired the bulky weapon from its shoulder, the guided fusion bomb streaking through the trees to where Catalina and Hadrian were kneeling, before it exploded with the brilliant white flash of a small supernova.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Medic!

I guess the two mutons just standing there were so that they could pin point the alphas for the big gun. I hope Cat and Hadrian have enough cover to absorb at least some of the blast.

 

[Richard Rawen]

... I just wanted to let you know that I have published a novella on the Smashwords Web site as an e-book.

HUZZAH!

The novella is an introduction to the setting, which I am developing further in a novel that I am finishing up now and hope to release by the end of the year.

Double Huzzah !! and a hearty Well Done! =-)

 

[Lazybones]

Double Huzzah !! and a hearty Well Done! =-)

Thanks, Richard! I am also looking at Amazon, but they require more specific formatting to publish there.

* * * * *

Session 26 (October 27, 2008)
Chapter 113


Hadrian blinked. Awareness came in a rush, along with an odd and generally unpleasant sensation, sort of like the way a leg felt when you’d been sitting on it for a while, only more intense and diffuse. The Marine looked up to see Mary leaning over him, a hypo in her hand.

“Hold still a moment. I’ve injected you with a dose of regenerative serum, and it may take your body a while to get used to the effects.”

Hadrian nodded. He let Mary help him sit up, then just watched as she ran over to help Vasily with Catalina. At first he wasn’t sure where he was, but then he recognized some of the surrounding features that told him he was still near the base of the hill where he and Catalina had been when the blaster round had struck nearby. He remembered diving behind the low rise as the missile had streaked toward them; that rise was gone now, replaced by a crater from which the broken black spires of tree trunks jutted at odd angles. The explosion had thrown him and Catalina back a good fifteen feet. That was two explosions he’d survived now, and he had no desire to push his luck.

The thought of an explosion drew his attention to the right, where the bomb tank lay against the bole of a damaged tree. It had been flipped over like a child’s toy by the force of the explosion. Jane was working on it now, using one of the new auto-repair kits that Grace had developed. It didn’t look like a good bet; he’d seen crumpled soda cans in better shape. At least the atomic warhead hadn’t gone off; that would have really ruined their day.

Hadrian tried to get up, found he could. His armor was intact, although it squeaked slightly whenever he tried to move his right arm. He suspected that the concussive force of the blast would have killed him instantly, had it not protected him. He looked around for his plasma cannon, but couldn’t find it. No big matter; the other mutons had been carrying them as well, and while they wouldn’t have Grace’s add-on sights or the convenient carrying strap, they’d work just fine.

He ordered his suit’s computer to complete a full diagnostic and walked over to where Vasily and Mary were helping a groaning Catalina to her feet. The British agent had taken less of a hit than he had, at least by the state of her armor. There was an empty medikit lying on the ground next to her, and from the look on her face, she’d gotten a jolt of the regen juice as well. Hadrian still felt like little ants were crawling just inside his skin all over his body, but otherwise he was feeling much more steady than he had just a minute earlier.

Vasily nodded as he joined them. “Well, the good news is the regen serum works,” Mary reported. “Field tested. The bad news is we’re out.”

“Well, hurrah,” Vasily said.

“What about the tank?” Hadrian asked, nodding at the disabled HWP.

“We not need tank, if we can just get warhead, maybe we can detonate ourself.”

“I’ll see if I can help Jane,” Catalina said.

“Hey, Catalina?” Vasily interjected. “How about stunning those specialists, huh?”

She grimaced. “He was targeting as I saw him, Vas.”

Vasily glanced back up the hill. “Gya. Crazy way to wage war.”

A loud clatter drew their attention back to Jane, who was levering the bomb tank back onto its tracks. It moved forward in a jerking fit, letting out both a loud noise and a trailing vent of black smoke.

“Fixed,” Jane said, as the others looked on the battered vehicle dubiously.

“Really need to keep that guy well back and out of the line of fire,” Hadrian said.

“If they didn’t know we were coming, they do now,” Catalina noted.

“Eh, what you gonna do, huh?” Vasily said. “We good to move?”

They turned back toward the hill, but before they could take so much as a single step, a loud, piercing—and familiar—cry sounded from ahead, up the slope.

“Chryssalid!” Catalina and Vasily warned almost at the same instant, even as a second loud cry echoed the first, this one coming from the south, around the flank of the hill. A dark form appeared in the trees ahead of them, and the plasma tank fired a blast, the bolt striking the ground at the charging creature’s feet, erupting in a brilliant white flare that enveloped the thing. It didn’t so much as faze the alien, which kept on coming, until, still a good ten meters away, it sprang high into the air, arcing down toward the surprised Alphas.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

I guess they're going to get a field test of their anti Chrystalid egg syrum now.

 

[Richard Rawen]

Thanks, Richard! I am also looking at Amazon, but they require more specific formatting to publish there.

*nods* I grabbed the pdf, not much of a portable reader type.
I enjoyed the story alot, is it a kind of hook to get a mage out of the insular world of academics and into the "world of adventure"?
Reminds me a bit of Dragon Age (blood magic), and of a book series I read years ago which uses similar 'schools' of magic. All in all a nice foothold into your world