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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5196440" data-attributes="member: 143">Session 22 (September 22, 2008)Chapter 89The plasma bolt struck the wall about two feet from Mary’s head, punching a hole a foot across in the thick masonry.  She let out a keening cry, and started to run forward, though there was no cover to be had.  A second shot hit a mailbox in her path, and it exploded, showering her with shards of metal and burning pieces of paper.  She screamed and dove forward, falling into the doorway of the market almost on top of Vasily.“What’s happening?” she yelled. “Draw gun!  Shoot back!” he yelled back.  He had his hands full already, she saw, with big chunks of the doorway blasted black and charred by hits from the snakemen coming up the street.  There were two there, both already wounded, and one staggered again as Vasily blasted it with a stream of shells from his autocannon. With her back to Vasily, Mary staggered to her feet.  The snakeman was still there, shooting now at Jane, who’d taken cover behind a low wall behind the market.  Mary drew her gun and fired, closing her eyes as she shot blindly in the general direction of the snakeman. There was a huge roar, and another explosion shook the ground and the building she was hiding in.  She opened her eyes to see that the alien she’d shot at was down, although it was highly unlikely that any of her wild shots had inflicted the precise impacts that had torn gaping holes in its throat and chest.  Jane ran up, and Vasily stepped into the street.  Mary looked past him and saw that the two aliens there had been obliterated, along with most of the buildings to either side of the street.  “If we’re not careful, the Air Force is going to blow us up as well as the aliens,” Jane said. “Hell.  We better move fast,” Vasily said.  “Catalina?”The British woman was already scanning with her portable device.  “Another group to the north, a few streets over, looks like,” she said.  “One definite snakeman, no ID on others.”Vasily led them forward at a run, his armored boots leaving small impressions in the asphalt of the street behind him.  Mary followed with the others, who scanned the buildings and alleys they passed, alert for any more surprises.  Everyone seemed to know what to do, except Mary, who held onto her gun with fingers that were white inside of the heavy gloves.Once again they heard the screams before they got to the intersection.  A big car accident had created a tangled mess there, and there was an ambulance there, its lights flashing.  People were running past, darting through the mess of burning cars.  “Run!”  A man yelled.  “More of them!”  A moment later, a plasma bolt hit him in the back, and he fell, his screams quickly dying as the white burst enfolded him.  Vasily ran ahead, and was hit by another blast that slammed into his chest and drove him back a step.  He turned and unleashed a blast from his gun.  Around him the other Alphas took cover and also returned fire.  Catalina yelled at the fleeing survivors, directing them behind her, into the street they’d just cleared.  A paramedic ran over to the fallen man who’d just been shot, but he barely took a look at the body before rushing up to help someone else who was lying in a doorway, half his face covered in a sheen of blood.  The firefight was wild, chaotic, and quick, with the plasma bolts exploding all around them.  Vasily ducked behind the ambulance as several shots punched into it, but he reappeared around the far side to blast the snakemen with another stream of shells.  The three snakemen in this group didn’t last long, and within twenty seconds of their arrival at the intersection all three were down, smoking black holes gaping in their anatomy.  The Alphas helped the last of the survivors get clear.  Mary helped the paramedic with the injured man, the familiar effort allowing her to regain some small vestige of self-control. Vasily came up behind her as the paramedic and the wounded man headed off down the street after the others.  He looked frightful, his heavy armor blackened and…  “Oh, you’re wounded,” she said, digging into the satchel at her said that held her medical gear. “Ya, it kind of happen,” he said.  “Just shoot it with X-COM medikit.”She had been briefed on X-COM’s advanced medicines, although the idea of just stabbing unknown substances into a bleeding wound seemed counterintuitive to her.  Still, she took out the odd device and started to unwrap it, before Vasily pushed her aside. A man had emerged from one of the buildings adjoining the intersection.  He was middle-aged, clad in sweatpants and a white T-shirt soaked with blood.  He looked sick, his skin gray and slick with sweat, and he clutched his bulging gut with both hands as he staggered into the street.  Catalina was closest to him, and she hurried forward to catch him as he lurched toward her.  But instead of falling into her grasp, he suddenly grabbed onto her, embracing her in a surprisingly strong hold, moaning as he pressed his slobbering jaws against the faceplate of her helmet. “What the!” she exclaimed, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge him.  She reached for her plasma pistol, but the sick man knocked it away, pinning her arm as he reached up and yanked hard at her helmet, pulling it askew.  “Hey!” Vasily shouted, starting forward toward them.  “Calm down, you…”There was a gunshot, and the man crumpled.  Hadrian stood there behind them, his Glock smoking in his hand.  “You killed him!” Mary exclaimed in horror.  She started toward the fallen man, but Vasily stopped her with an outstretched arm.  “He tried to bite me!” Catalina exclaimed.  “You okay, Cat?” James asked.  He warily approached the body, which shifted slightly.  “He’s still alive—” he began, but stopped in his tracks as the man’s gut suddenly swelled and burst in a vile, bloody mess.  “What the hell?” Vasily yelled.They all started in surprise as something came out of the wreckage of what had been the man’s torso.  It sprang up, lashing at Catalina, who fell back in alarm.  Whatever it was—all they could see was a twisting, sinuous mass of coiling limbs and chitinous flesh, covered in gore—it grabbed onto the British agent’s arm and pulled itself up as she tried to break free.  She screamed and swung at it with her other hand, trying to dislodge it.  She turned into James, who hit it solidly with his plasma rifle, knocking it free.  It flipped end over end and landed in the street, letting out a terrible hissing noise. Then it exploded as a plasma bolt caught it solidly in the center of its mass.  The others turned to Mary, who stood there shaking, wisps of steam rising from the barrel of her pistol.</blockquote>

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