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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5038460" data-attributes="member: 143">Red is a Christmas color, right?  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />* * * * * Session 12 (June 30, 2008)Chapter 40The landscape was lush, the greenery broken only by the squat forms of several stone buildings ahead of them, and the winding black line of an asphalt road that ran between them and the main highway a few miles to the south.  They could see a few cars, parked in the grass just off the road, and a battered old truck that burned merrily, smoke rising from it in a black plume. There was no time to enjoy the scene, however, as they were greeted by the sound of gunfire coming from the area of the buildings ahead.  “Fight already started,” Vasily said, lumbering forward, the weight of the autocannon giving him an uneven, shambling gait.  The others rushed after him as they disembarked, spreading out to give their enemies less of a target. The familiar sound of plasma bolts was punctuated by the crack of a rifle.  “Get back, you demons!” someone yelled, between the shots. “Three targets!” Jane yelled, running along the left side of the road toward the voice.  They could all see them, now, the deadly, alien outlines of snakemen, clad in harnesses, firing at the largest of the stone buildings, a church that might have dated from the middle ages from the look of it.  As they watched, they saw several bolts slam into the threshold around the main entry, and a man emerge from the swirl of pulverized dust, a bolt-action rifle in his hands.  He was clad in the black robe of a Catholic priest, and blood trailed down the side of his head from a gash in his forehead.“The lord is my shepherd!” he yelled, snapping off a shot at one of the snakemen.  The bullet struck its target, but had no apparent impact on the creature, who fired again, almost taking the man’s head off before he could duck back into cover.  “Get back inside!” Vasily yelled, opening fire with his cannon.  The minigun unleashed a spray of armor-piercing shells, knocking the first alien roughly back from the sheer force of the impacts.  The other two returned fire, but Vasily was able to duck behind a boulder, the plasma bolts streaking past him. The priest emerged from cover to shoot again, hitting his target again, and drawing a shot that disintegrated one of the stained glass windows set deep in casements around the perimeter of the church.  Jane ran up to join him in the deep threshold of the entry, which was pocked now with gaping holes where the alien plasma bolts had hit.  “Stay in cover, you idiot,” she said to him, as he reloaded his weapon.“My dear, I was a veteran.  I do not need to be—”  But he was cut off as another bolt hit above them on the far side of the doorway, showering them with shards of stone.  “Stay behind me!” Jane commanded, firing off several shots from her laser.  She hit the alien as well, the snakeman soldier now covered with various wounds.  As if that wasn’t enough, the one that Vasily had shot was getting back up, hissing as it reached for its dropped weapon.  “Quite persistent, are they not?” the priest asked, leaning over Jane to fire his gun.Catalina and Buzz had taken up positions behind a low stone wall that ran around the perimeter of the property, firing their lasers at the aliens.  The snakemen responded with a barrage of plasma bolts that tore a wide gap in the barrier, sending the two humans diving for better cover.  Arvin had tried to follow Jane to the front of the church, but one of the aliens had shot at him, forcing him to scramble for cover in the shallow ditch that ran alongside the road.  Vasily leaned out from his cover, sending another barrage of lead toward the aliens.  One alien spun around and fell, but before he could shift his aim, a plasma bolt hit him in the shoulder, knocking him back.  He had barely dragged himself back behind the boulder before another shot slammed into the rock, vaporizing a significant percentage of its mass.  Vasily, grimacing, tried to lift his weapon, blood trailing down his arm from the nasty wound.  Jane and the priest had kept up their fire, and drew the attention of the snake that was keeping Catalina and Buzz pinned down.  The line of black char that Jane drew across its torso with her laser didn’t seem to faze it much, but it got its attention.  Its shot clipped Jane’s leg just above the knee, and cried out in pain, falling forward as the limb collapsed from under her.  The priest grabbed her and pulled her back into the doorway, moments before the alien’s second shot sliced through the air where she’d been crouched.  Arvin rose up out of the ditch, his uniform streaked with mud.  “No, stay there!” Jane yelled, but the medic either didn’t hear or heard too late.  The plasma bolt caught him solidly on the side of his neck, just under his helmet, and then there was only a bright red spray, which vanished as what was left of the young Indian fell back into the ditch.</blockquote>

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