Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5269491" data-attributes="member: 143">Coming up with cliffhangers was easy for this mission. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* * * * * Session 26 (October 27, 2008)Chapter 112Outside air rushed into the Lightning as the craft veered roughly to the side. “KEN!” Vasily yelled into his communicator.  The other Alphas could do nothing but hold on, as they bounced back and forth in their harnesses.The aircraft’s tilt extended to almost ninety degrees, then it eased back, with a reassuring pressure under them as it gained more altitude.  Ken’s voice hissed over their helmet speakers.  “We’re all right… we’re still here.”“They have missiles or something?” Vasily asked. “One of those blaster shells, I think.  Just missed us… Better watch it down there… going down… engines are Red, but I’ll put you down intact.”  The Lightning switched to VTOL mode, and again they were descending.  They could just make out the line of a mountain through the gash in the hull, then the green of trees, and then they were down, snow blowing up around the aircraft to obscure their view. “Base is south… good luck, team!” Ken told them, as the Lightning’s engines abruptly sputtered and died.  “If they shot at us, they knew we’re coming,” Catalina said, as they filed out of the damaged craft.  Ken emerged from the cockpit, a laser pistol at his hip, and headed for the damaged engines.“Can you actually fix these?” James asked.  “I’d rather Grace was here, but since she’s not, I’ll have to give it my best,” Ken said.  “Don’t take too long, eh?  Intel says there’s no PLA installations within a hundred miles, and the Lightning’s systems are cloaked, but I don’t like the idea of spending the night alone out here.”  “We be as quick as can be,” Vasily said.  He turned and saw that Jane and Hadrian had gotten the two HWPs out of their bay in the Lightning’s belly.  His eyes lingered on the distended bulge of the one carrying the bomb.  “Move out, spread out,” he said.  He gestured for Catalina to take point, the agent moving forward into the trees, her plasma pistol held close against her hip in one hand, her motion sensor in the other.  They headed into the forest, the HWPs driving a path through the shallow snow.  They’d covered only a few hundred meters of ground from the Lightning when the plasma tank chirped, and a charging indicator in the back of the vehicle’s turret began to glow.  “Plasma tank seen something I think,” Vasily said.  They moved forward and found Catalina waiting for them behind a low rise.  They left the tanks in place and moved up to join her, crouching behind a line of boulders covered with a light dusting of fresh snow.  “Muton, there,” Catalina said, gesturing toward a point between the trees ahead. Vasily activated the zoom on his VDU.  “Yah, I see,” he said.  “Two,” Catalina said, nodding to the right, where the ground rose in a gentle slope to a hilltop summit maybe forty or fifty yards higher than their current vantage.  “Any way around?” Hadrian asked. Catalina shook her head.  “The ground is much rougher to the sides.  The tanks would not make it even if we could.  And it definitely looks like they’re guarding something up there.”“I say we go up here,” Vasily said.  He looked to either side, evaluating, and nodded.  “This good cover.  Catalina, Hadrian, you stay here, set up for cover.  Others go around those trees to left.  Once we start shooting, send up plasma tank.”“Careful,” Catalina told him.  Vasily, Mary, and Jane fell back and moved into the cover of the trees, approaching the hill from the left.  Vasily put Jane into a position where she could cover the entire rise with her rifle, then he crept forward toward the closer of the two mutons, ordering Mary to stay low and back behind him.  As the ascent grew steeper they could periodically catch glimpses of the green suits of the mutons, standing out garishly against the whites, grays, and browns of the hillside. “Why don’t they attack?” Mary whispered.  “I can’t believe they didn’t see us land.”Vasily shushed her—there was no guarantee that the aliens couldn’t intercept even their short-range suit comms—and gestured toward a boulder slightly ahead and to the right.  He went straight ahead, creeping up behind a fallen tree, unlimbering his heavy plasma, his eyes fixed on the nearest muton, which had remained where it had been since they’d first spotted it, staring vacantly down the hill, ignoring the Russian who was now within fifty meters of its position. “Now you get surprise,” he muttered, aiming down the sights Grace had installed on the alien-built weapon.  He could feel the power building within the gun, and closed his eyes a moment before the bright burst of plasma streaked out.  It caught the muton in the hip, punching a hole in its armored body, but he wasn’t surprised when it not only remained standing, but turned toward him, lifting its own cannon.  But before it could shoot, a volley of fire from the other Alphas blasted up the slope.  Two bright plasma bursts enveloped the muton, knocking it down but not out, the alien fumbling as it tried to both hold onto its weapon and recover its footing.  The second alien that Catalina had spotted was firing toward her and Hadrian’s position, but Vasily doubted it would get a hit in the good cover they had.  Then he heard the mechanical sounds of the plasma HWP, a moment before it added its own firepower to the battle, firing a blast that exploded a tree a scant four feet from the second muton.  The alien shifted fire toward the tank, but staggered as a blast that had to have come from Hadrian’s gun slammed into its chest. Vasily shot the first muton again, but it still managed to rise into a crouch.  It lifted its cannon—amazingly, in one hand—and fired, not at Vasily, but at Mary, who was shooting wildly with her plasma pistol.  She saw it and tried to duck back into cover, but the plasma bolt caught her high on the shoulder, knocking her roughly over onto her back.  She bounced on the rocks and slid a good five feet before landing in a drift, dazed.  As Vasily shot the alien yet again, he glanced back to see her try to get up, exposing herself again to the alien’s line of sight.  A shower of wooden splinters exploded ahead of him as the alien blasted the log sheltering him, but the shot failed to penetrate to him.  “Move back down hill!” Vasily yelled at Mary, rising up just enough to squeeze off another shot at the muton.  He cursed as the shot missed, transforming a patch of snow into superheated steam.  He ducked back before the alien could return fire, but it didn’t get a chance, as a plasma bolt caught it under the chin, and it finally went down, its head barely attached to its body.  The second muton was likewise in bad shape; it had scored a hit on the HWP, which had stopped, but was continuing to fire.  The distraction cost the alien, as Catalina and Hadrian continued to pour fire into it, blasting slowly and gradually through its armor.  Hadrian finally scored a hit that penetrated its side, flashing white-hot plasma into its chest cavity, searing the only slightly more vulnerable organs beneath.  The alien started to turn, lifting its gun toward the new target, but couldn’t manage it.  It fell over heavily to the side.  Hadrian kept it in his sights, intending to make sure of it, but before he could shoot Catalina looked past him, toward the right flank of the hill, and saw something that made her eyes widen.  “Launcher!” she yelled, but too late, as the muton fired the bulky weapon from its shoulder, the guided fusion bomb streaking through the trees to where Catalina and Hadrian were kneeling, before it exploded with the brilliant white flash of a small supernova.</blockquote>

Verification