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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4933404" data-attributes="member: 143">Yeah, there weren't any wolves in X-COM either, but I figured I needed to build to the aliens. Especially after what happened during this session...* * * * * Session 3 (April 28, 2008)Chapter 8Gunfire exploded in the clearing around the cabin as the wolves attacked.  Catalina tried to make it to the door, but a wolf cut her off, leaping for her throat.  The creature jerked in mid-leap, hit by a round from Jane’s high-powered rifle.  Buzz screamed as two of the wolves leapt at him.  He got his pistol out and started shooting, but none of his shots came anywhere near his attackers.  He staggered back, and barely kept his balance as the wolves pressed him, jaws snapping at his legs.  Vasily killed one wolf with a short burst from his G-36, then targeted another that was attacking James.  James had shot the wolf with his own rifle, but the wolf kept pressing, seizing hold of his left leg just below the knee.  Vasily switched to single shot, putting one, two, three rounds into the wolf’s body.  Even then the wolf didn’t go down, until James lined the barrel of his rifle up with the wolf’s skull and pulled the trigger. Jane turned to help Buzz, knocking one wolf off him with a bullet that clipped its skull.  Catalina started to follow, but the wolf that had attacked her suddenly surged back up to its feet, snapping its jaws on her forearm.  Crying out in surprise, she lifted her other hand and pumped half a clip of pistol rounds into its body, tearing free as it sagged to the ground, really dead this time. The last wolf had gotten a good grip on Buzz’s leg, but as the humans rallied it drew back, snarling viciously.  Even outnumbered and surrounded by fallen allies it surged forward to attack again, only to crumple as Vasily shot it right between the eyes.  The Russian breathed heavily, although the fight had lasted less than a minute.  “They not kid.”“Gads, it bit me,” Buzz cried, limping heavily on his wounded leg.  “That… hurt,” James said, already digging out his medical kit.  He was limping too, but he turned first to Buzz.  “Buzz, sit down on that porch there, I need to stop the bleeding.  Cat, you hurt?”“Yeah, but it’s not too bad,” she said, checking her bloody arm.  “Can you tell if they are rabid or anything like that?” Jane asked, poking at one of the corpses.“Damn!  It hurts!” Buzz yelled, as James cut away the cloth around the man’s wounds.  “On the Nature channel they run away after they are being shot… especially after one dies!”James worked quickly, cleaning the wounds and spraying them with antiseptic, then binding them with a bandage from his bag.  After he’d treated Buzz, he did the same for himself, and then Catalina.  “Buzz and myself will need some better medical attention soon,” he said, once he was finished. “We need to hurry then,” Vasily said.  He activated his communicator again.  “Sky Ranger, this Team Alpha.  Do you have fix on our position?  What is likely of landing in mountains, over?”There was a hiss of static over the communications link.  “…no go, chief.  Satellite shows no good spots I could put the Skyran…”  The link hissed out.  Vasily tapped it a few times for good measure, but the voice didn’t come back.  He reloaded his rifle, and looked down at Buzz, sitting on the cabin’s tiny porch.  “You okay to move?”Catalina had gone inside the hut, and was poking around.  She reemerged as Buzz got to his feet, with Jane’s help.  “Hey, I am a geek with a gun, not superman.  But yeah, I’ll manage.”James cocked his head.  “Do you hear that?”Vasily looked over toward him.  “What?”“Thought I heard something, from over there.  Be alert, guys.”They headed in the direction the doctor had indicated.  The ground was harder here, with the muddy earth giving way to stone.  They could see the valley wall rising up ahead through the trees, and as they made their way ahead, they could see a broad pool up ahead of them, with a sheer cliff face behind it.  “What’s that?” James said.  He pointed at an object half-buried in the muck at the near edge of the pool. They carefully edged forward.  The object James had spotted was an oblong bulb, immersed at the edge of the pool.  “It green?” Vasily asked, squinting at it.  “Well, it doesn’t look like it belongs here,” Buzz said, grimacing with each step he took.  “Water looks green… nasty,” Catalina observed.  Jane edged closer to the object, but Vasily stopped her.  “Hold!  Remember exploding box.”“Some kind of green goop around it,” James said, careful to give it a wide berth as he edged around the border of the pool.  “I’ll get a sample.”“Careful,” Jane said.  “I know what I’m doing,” James replied, taking out a small plastic case from his utility kit. While James attended to the alien artifact—if that was indeed what the strange object and its green ooze was—Catalina continued poking around the edges of the pool.  “More footprints over here,” she said.  “Our three-toed friend.”“Do you hear that?” Jane asked. They stopped moving, and listened.  There was a faint sound of wind blowing through the trees, but then they could hear another sound, a faint humming noise, high-pitched, almost beyond perception.  “There!” Buzz shouted, pointing through the forest.  They just had a chance to see a dark metallic object, hovering in mid-air, before it unleashed a bright pulse of energy that slammed into Buzz’s chest, knocking him over onto his back.  He laid where he had fallen, and did not move.  His companions stared down in horror at him, saw that his armored uniform had been burned away by the hit, leaving a blackened hole from which rose the sickly sweet smell of charred flesh.</blockquote>

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