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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5085427" data-attributes="member: 143">Heh, this was a very chaotic mission. * * * * * Session 15 (July 21, 2008)Chapter 53“Hold on… wait!” Catalina said, but it was clear that Moshe hadn’t heard her, as he followed the guard Derek under the protruding beam at the back of the cellar.  Stifling a curse, she finished pulling Jane free of the tight passage through the rubbled staircase.  “Help James and Vas through,” she said, then hurried after the pair.  The space under the fallen beam was a tight fit, but easy after the truly confined crawlspace she’d just navigated a few minutes ago.  She got through just as the steel door at the top of the cellar steps creaked open, and Derek and Moshe emerged into the daylight above.She headed up the steps, a slight nagging feeling of unease tickling in the back of her mind.  It became a cold pit in her gut as Derek was shot down, and then, a scant heartbeat later, Moshe was hit, his head exploding like a ripe melon hit by a sledgehammer.  Catalina could only watch as the headless body stood there for a moment, before collapsing into a limp heap.  Another plasma bolt struck the doorframe, exploding in a coruscating fountain of bright energy.  Catalina cursed and ducked down, drawing out her laser pistol.  “Attack!” she yelled.  She could hear Jane and the others behind, on the far side of the fallen beam, but for the moment, she was alone.  Keeping her head low, she crept forward and peeked a look over the threshold of the doorway.  She caught a glimpse of the small, familiar gray forms coming down over the hills on the far side of the dell, but her gaze was drawn to the small oblong object that was rolling to a stop just a few feet ahead, between the bodies of the dead guard and X-COM scientist.Catalina let out a strangled sound and dropped off the stairs, pressing up against the cellar wall, her arms clenched over her head like a shield.  The explosion followed an instant later, shaking the building as a surge of hot plasma slammed down through the open doorway, close enough so that she could feel the scorching heat on her arms and down the back of her neck.  Bits of masonry and shards of wood glanced off her arms and onto her back, but the remnants of the building, mercifully, held up, although the tangle of ruined beams groaned loudly as they shifted from the force of the blast.  Jane popped through the tight opening under that wreckage, followed a second later by Vasily. “Doctor Yahav up there?” he yelled, pointing to the open doorway, which was wreathed now in swirling smoke.“Up there, everyone is down and aliens all over!” Catalina returned, shaking the debris clear from her body as she stood.“What kind of alien?” Vasily asked. “Sectoid.  I only saw a few, but they have grenades…”“We stay here, they drop building on us,” the Russian said.  He made his way to the base of the stairs, checking the charge on his pistol.  Behind him, Jane did the same with her rifle, a grim look on her face.  “All at once?” she asked. Vasily nodded.  He glanced back at James, who was just coming through the opening under the beam, which seemed slightly smaller, now.  Catalina coughed as she tried to work the dust free from her lungs.  “Ready?” Vasily asked, looking around at them.  He barely waited for their nods before he yelled, “Go!” and charged up the stairs, the others close behind. They emerged in the midst of a deadly crossfire.  The wreckage of the cottage behind them barely offered cover, with most of the building’s structure either scattered around the clearing or collapsed onto itself, sagging into the cellar below.  Sectoids were visible all around, on the low hills to the west, north, and east, and they fired, bright bolts of plasma streaking through the air toward the humans.  “Spread out!” Vasily yelled, darting forward as plasma bolts exploded around his feet.  He lifted his pistol and lasered the nearest alien, drawing a black line across its torso.  The alien staggered back but was able to return fire, hitting Vasily with a blast that hit him hard on the arm, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground.  “Vas!” Catalina yelled.  She started toward him, but the Russian gestured her to stay back, crawling forward to the remnants of the low stone wall that surrounded the property.  She looked at the burning APC, but one glance was enough to tell her that the overturned vehicle was going nowhere ever again.  She dove into a dip in the blackened ground next to the road, chased by bolts that shot up geysers of earth around the lip of the hole, all around her. Jane ducked into the lee of the wrecked building, firing off blasts from her laser rifle.  She shot an alien that was taking aim at James, and as the sectoid fell she followed him as he ran across the road, the two of them taking cover behind a mound of earth dominated by an old tree stump, dead roots sticking out in every direction around its base.  The doctor nearly had his head taken off by a plasma bolt, and he returned fire, forcing the sectoid back into cover amongst the rocks along one of the adjacent hilltops. “We’re going to get annihilated if we stay here!” he yelled, trying to make himself smaller as another bolt impacted the stump, vaporizing a good hunk of it.  Jane fired, dropping her second sectoid, but there were still several more visible on that flank.  With the aliens all around them, there was no place they could hide that would give them cover against all of the alien attacks.A sectoid came around the end of the wall, but was shot in the head by Vasily before it could take aim.  The Russian covered his ear with his other hand, trying to listen over the sounds of the battle.  “Ken!” he yelled into his communicator.  “You receiving?”  He snarled as static came over the connection, then heard a faint voice that faded in and out through the distortion.  “…some sort of jammi… I …der attack! …try to set down to the east…”“Ken!” Vasily yelled, but the static deepened, and the pilot’s voice did not return. But the others had heard him as well.  “Regroup!” Catalina yelled, jumping up from her tenuous shelter and dashing toward Jane and James’s position.  Several aliens shot at her, but the bolts narrowly missed, in one case streaking by close enough to incinerate several strands of her hair.  Vasily sprang up and followed her, staying as low as he could to gain what limited protection he could get from the wall.  Ahead of him a segment as long as his arm exploded, but he kept going, vanishing for a second into the swirling cloud of pulverized stone dust.  James and Catalina were charging down the road, while Jane remained behind, providing covering fire.  An alien fell to Vasily’s right and slid down the tangled slope of the hill, while up ahead, another threw a grenade that dropped well short of the two fleeing Alphas, but still had enough power to knock both of them prone as it detonated.  For a moment Vasily lost them in the shower of debris caused by the plasma explosion, then it cleared enough for him to see James helping Catalina to her feet, both of them more than a little dazed from the force of the blast.  Vasily ran after them, not looking back.  Clods of earth continued to land all around him, as he ran past the crater that had been created by the alien grenade.  He could hear the sound of Jane’s laser behind, the noise overshadowed by the constant barrage of plasma bolts.  “Jane!” he yelled over his shoulder.  “We moving out!”The road wound ahead, through the low hills that formed berms to either side of them.  Vasily saw a sectoid crest one of the hills to the right, and even as he shouted a warning, another appeared to the left, while shots continued to streak after them from behind.  This is a damned shooting gallery, he thought, firing on the run, knowing he had almost no chance of hitting anything.  To his surprise, the alien to the right suddenly exploded in a bright flash of light.  Ahead, James and Catalina stopped and spun in surprise, weapons at the ready.  That alien was no longer a threat, but before the two of them could starting running again, the alien on the far side of the road fired.  The plasma bolt hit James in the small of his back, and he cried out as the force of the impact knocked him roughly to the ground.  Catalina caught his arm and dragged him off to the side of the road, toward a cluster of rocks at the base of the hill that offered at least some possibility of cover.  She fired at the alien, but the laser beam didn’t come anywhere close to the alien.  Vasily’s shot came closer, close enough to send the sectoid scurrying into cover.  Vasily ran up and helped Catalina manhandle James over the last ten feet, pulling the medic into the shelter of the rocks.  The Russian crouched behind them and looked for more targets while Catalina dug into James’s satchel, looking for something to treat his wound.  The doctor groaned weakly, only partially conscious, but his hand closed reflexively over the pouch holding the medikit.  Catalina pulled his hand free and took out the tri-pronged device.  “Damned if this doesn’t look worse than those blasters,” she said, gently rolling the doctor onto his side.  The blast had struck the power unit to his laser pistol, and she had to gingerly pull free the smoking wreckage free to inject him with the contents of the medikit.  Some of his flesh came away with the hot metal.  At least it didn’t explode, she thought, stabbing the injectors into his back.  “Where is Jane?” Vasily growled, firing at an alien coming up the road behind them.  He tried to raise her on his com unit, but the tiny speakers still only fed static.  He started to get up, but the alien on the far hill shot the rocks directly ahead of him.  He fell back onto Catalina, blinded by dust and stinging shards of rock.  “Gaaa!” “Watch it!” Catalina yelled, trying to shelter James as she fell forward, off balance.  She reached back to stabilize the Russian, who blinked, trying to clear his vision enough to see.  The debris from the shattered rocks swirled around them for a moment, then dissipated.  When it cleared, Vasily and Catalina could see the sectoid, which had closed to within forty meters of their position.  They were close enough to see its gray eyes under its clear helmet, and definitely close enough to see it take a grenade from its belt, activate it, and raise its arm to throw.</blockquote>

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