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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5004513" data-attributes="member: 143">Session 9 (June 9, 2008)Chapter 29A 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.</blockquote>

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