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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5272003" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks, Richard! I am also looking at Amazon, but they require more specific formatting to publish there. * * * * * Session 26 (October 27, 2008)Chapter 113Hadrian blinked.  Awareness came in a rush, along with an odd and generally unpleasant sensation, sort of like the way a leg felt when you’d been sitting on it for a while, only more intense and diffuse.  The Marine looked up to see Mary leaning over him, a hypo in her hand.  “Hold still a moment.  I’ve injected you with a dose of regenerative serum, and it may take your body a while to get used to the effects.”Hadrian nodded.  He let Mary help him sit up, then just watched as she ran over to help Vasily with Catalina.  At first he wasn’t sure where he was, but then he recognized some of the surrounding features that told him he was still near the base of the hill where he and Catalina had been when the blaster round had struck nearby.  He remembered diving behind the low rise as the missile had streaked toward them; that rise was gone now, replaced by a crater from which the broken black spires of tree trunks jutted at odd angles.  The explosion had thrown him and Catalina back a good fifteen feet.  That was two explosions he’d survived now, and he had no desire to push his luck. The thought of an explosion drew his attention to the right, where the bomb tank lay against the bole of a damaged tree.  It had been flipped over like a child’s toy by the force of the explosion.  Jane was working on it now, using one of the new auto-repair kits that Grace had developed.  It didn’t look like a good bet; he’d seen crumpled soda cans in better shape.  At least the atomic warhead hadn’t gone off; that would have really ruined their day.Hadrian tried to get up, found he could.  His armor was intact, although it squeaked slightly whenever he tried to move his right arm.  He suspected that the concussive force of the blast would have killed him instantly, had it not protected him.  He looked around for his plasma cannon, but couldn’t find it.  No big matter; the other mutons had been carrying them as well, and while they wouldn’t have Grace’s add-on sights or the convenient carrying strap, they’d work just fine.He ordered his suit’s computer to complete a full diagnostic and walked over to where Vasily and Mary were helping a groaning Catalina to her feet.  The British agent had taken less of a hit than he had, at least by the state of her armor.  There was an empty medikit lying on the ground next to her, and from the look on her face, she’d gotten a jolt of the regen juice as well.  Hadrian still felt like little ants were crawling just inside his skin all over his body, but otherwise he was feeling much more steady than he had just a minute earlier.  Vasily nodded as he joined them.  “Well, the good news is the regen serum works,” Mary reported.  “Field tested.  The bad news is we’re out.”“Well, hurrah,” Vasily said.“What about the tank?” Hadrian asked, nodding at the disabled HWP. “We not need tank, if we can just get warhead, maybe we can detonate ourself.”“I’ll see if I can help Jane,” Catalina said. “Hey, Catalina?” Vasily interjected.  “How about stunning those specialists, huh?”She grimaced.  “He was targeting as I saw him, Vas.”Vasily glanced back up the hill.  “Gya.  Crazy way to wage war.”A loud clatter drew their attention back to Jane, who was levering the bomb tank back onto its tracks.  It moved forward in a jerking fit, letting out both a loud noise and a trailing vent of black smoke.  “Fixed,” Jane said, as the others looked on the battered vehicle dubiously. “Really need to keep that guy well back and out of the line of fire,” Hadrian said. “If they didn’t know we were coming, they do now,” Catalina noted.“Eh, what you gonna do, huh?” Vasily said.  “We good to move?”They turned back toward the hill, but before they could take so much as a single step, a loud, piercing—and familiar—cry sounded from ahead, up the slope.  “Chryssalid!” Catalina and Vasily warned almost at the same instant, even as a second loud cry echoed the first, this one coming from the south, around the flank of the hill.  A dark form appeared in the trees ahead of them, and the plasma tank fired a blast, the bolt striking the ground at the charging creature’s feet, erupting in a brilliant white flare that enveloped the thing.  It didn’t so much as faze the alien, which kept on coming, until, still a good ten meters away, it sprang high into the air, arcing down toward the surprised Alphas.</blockquote>

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