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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5131221" data-attributes="member: 143">I'll be at a conference for the rest of the week and probably won't have access to a computer, but this post should serve as a decent Friday cliffhanger. * * * * * Session 18 (August 25, 2008)Chapter 67There was no time to evade; Vasily brought the stun rod up to intercept the strike.  The vibroblade struck it and kept going; the alien metal slicing through the carbon fiber shaft of the X-COM weapon with ease.  But he was able to slow the trooper’s attack just long enough; as he fell back, the tip of the blade merely scraped across his chest rather than cleaving his skull in two.  The other trooper had turned reflexively at Vasily’s attack, and as the pair sparred he brought his plasma rifle up to uneven the odds.  But while Cecilia and Hadrian hadn’t been able to hurt him seriously thus far, it proved to be a mistake to discount them fully.  Cecilia took careful aim and pulsed her laser at the damaged point of the trooper’s armor, where Hadrian’s plasma bolts had cratered the protection covering his leg.  She was rewarded by a lurch as the armor fused, throwing off the trooper’s aim.  Hadrian shot him in the small of his back, and as the trooper cried out, caught now and unable to react to either threat, the Marine rushed forward, firing bolt after bolt that pounded into the Russian’s back until he finally toppled forward, smoke rising from his pulverized torso. Vasily dodged another swing of the vibroblade.  The OSNAZ man was far better protected and stronger, his physical prowess likely augmented by his armor in a manner similar to Cecilia, but that same suit made him just a bit slower, and the X-COM agent took full advantage.  He lured the enemy in with an attack that invited a counter, but when it came, Vasily was moving past the trooper, coming past his vulnerable flank.  He drove down with the ruined half of the stun rod, thrusting it down with his full strength into the back of the soldier’s knee.  The joint, articulated to move forward, couldn’t hold, and the trooper fell forward, landing awkwardly on his face.  He still wasn’t seriously hurt, and he immediately tried to get up, but Vasily jumped onto his back, drew his pistol, and pressed the barrel into the back of the man’s neck, just under the lip of his helmet.  One shot, and the man fell limp. They found Jane conscious but battered, an empty medikit lying next to her.  Her helmet was ruined, the faceplate cracked and blackened, but other than some charred skin running in a swath along the side of her face, she seemed able to move once the alien medicines had run their course.  Vasily took out his own medikit, reluctantly, it seemed. “I not feeling too good.  Anyone else?”“Go ahead,” Cecilia said.  She looked worse off than Vasily, with the battering her armor had taken, but it had absorbed more of the enemy firepower than the lighter suits that the others wore.  “I’ll stand guard.  I might be the only one here who can go toe-to-toe with them for an extended time right now.”Hadrian picked his rifle, but he cursed as he loaded a fresh clip and chambered the first round.  “These weapons aren’t doing much to them,” he said.  Vasily poked at one of the armored bodies lying on the ground.  “They getting this stuff from aliens, I guess.”  Jane bent to look at one of them more closely.  She took out her xPhone and snapped a few images.  “Come on, can’t wait around,” Vasily said.They followed the hall to its end, where the enemy troopers had originated.  There was a small security station set up there, with a computer and a number of computer monitors set up atop a steel slab desk.  An armored door was set in a recessed threshold in the wall to the right, while to the left another corridor likely led back in the direction of the hangar. Vasily walked over to the workstation.  One of the monitors was still active, but there was a security block in place.  “Is usually Catalina handle this,” he said.  On a whim, he entered a standard OSNAZ clearance code, and was surprised when the screen came to life.  He couldn’t access most of the folders, but he was able to bring up a schematic of the base.  “There is other level,” he said.  “Lab… command center.  Behind door.  Maybe is where elite troopers were guarding.”  He tried to find a command to open the door, but all of the active systems were locked down.  “I have a breaching charge,” Cecilia said, opening a compartment in her armor.  “Maybe one of the dead guys has a passkey?” Hadrian suggested. “No time,” Vasily said, nodding at Cecilia.  She rigged the door with quick efficiency, and fell back, triggering the charge once they were all clear.  The charge went off with a loud thump.  It didn’t blow down the door—it would have taken a much bigger boom to do that—but it wrecked the locking mechanism.  With Cecilia’s augmented strength, she was able to pry it open enough for them to fit through.  The door led to a landing that had an elevator and a set of stairs that led down to the base’s lower level.  They didn’t even bother with the elevator, taking the stairs down four flights to another corridor that led deeper into the base.  After about twenty meters they came to another door on the side of the hallway, marked with Cyrillic characters that indicated that this was the base’s laboratory.  The door was locked, but it wasn’t as heavily armored as the one above; Cecilia’s laser cut through the lock in a matter of seconds. “This look… familiar,” Vasily said, as they stepped inside.  The room was in fact very similar to the sterile labs back at X-COM HQ.  Although some of the specific machinery was different, and often bulkier, it was immediately obvious that a lot of it was alien-inspired technology.  Only a handful of the dozen or so computer screens scattered around the room were active, and those were all locked down, but LEDs shone on most of the equipment, indicating that they were powered down but ready to jump back to life with the proper command. The same could not be said for the three men lying dead in the middle of the floor.  Clad in white coats, they’d each been shot in the head.“Why would they kill the scientists?” Cecilia asked. “Thy know too much,” Vasily said.  He stepped up to a bulky apparatus that looked like a huge metal claw poised over a metal pad, its four long arms bending down from the ceiling around the central point.  There was a small LCD set into the huge panel next to it, surrounded by rows of blinking indicators that made no sense to him.  “Bio-regenerative system active,” he said, reading the characters on the screen.  “What are they doing here?” he muttered. Cecilia poked her head into what looked like an office behind the main lab.  “Computer in here, I’ll check it out.”Hadrian kept his eyes on the door.  “Let’s not linger all day, sure to be response team coming.”Jane was taking video of the room with her xPhone.  “I might be able to interface my xPhone with the units here,” she said.  “If I can download their files…” Vasily nodded.  “Be quick.  Cecilia?” he called.“The computer’s locked down, but I’ve got the hard drive,” she called back from the office.  She appeared for a moment in the doorway.  “There’s some sort of tech locker in here,” she said, excitement shading her voice.  “It’s locked up, but I think I can force it.”  She held up her laser, and turned back.  “Careful!” he yelled, but she was already gone.  Frowning, he started after her.  Behind him, Jane was jacking her phone into an Ethernet port in one of the consoles, while Hadrian remained near the door, keeping an eye on the corridor outside.  There was a sudden flash, and a loud hissing noise.  Vasily saw Cecilia as a blur in the doorway of the office as the young woman was flung across the room.  She hit the far wall of the office with enough force to crack the insulated wall plate.  Surges of electricity flared around her and grew rather than faded.  She screamed as they coursed from the overloaded power systems of her armor, as the energy of ten grams of Elerium-115 coursed through her body.Vasily ran forward, but before he could reach the office there was a bright white eruption of light, and then he was flying backward, his senses overloaded until he hit something hard, and fell back into oblivion.</blockquote>

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