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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5294319" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks for the purchases, Richard! I appreciate it.  * * * * * Session 27 (November 3, 2008)Chapter 119“We’re coming up on our final approach,” Ken reported.  “Down in five minutes.  LZ looks clean, and I haven’t picked up any radar pings.”The Alphas stood in a row, ready for deployment, hanging onto the straps that descended from the roof of the compartment.  They’d already had quite a ride, as Ken had taken the Lightning in low from Switzerland, darting the ship nimbly back and forth through the high peaks and tight canyons of the Alps.  Vasily shifted as the aircraft banked hard, and nearly knocked James down.  “Hey, watch it, chief,” the doctor said. Vasily muttered something and righted himself.  In the new experimental armor, with two of the portable Elerium containment unit fixed to his back, he looked like some sort of bulky insect.  But with his strength augmented by the boost systems in the armor, he was the one best able to deal with the heavy cylinders.  Hadrian carried the third one, riding above the bulge in his back that carried his suit’s power systems.The Lightning’s momentum shifted as Ken engaged the VTOL systems, and within thirty seconds they felt the craft’s landing struts touch down.  The rear hatch opened, and they filed out to find themselves in a rocky meadow sandwiched between two dark, tall peaks.  The Alphas exited and spread out as Ken launched the Lightning back into the air; he would await their signal from a more secure location deeper in the mountains.  Mary walked over to the edge of the meadow, where a cluster of stone buildings could be seen in a dell situated down a sharp slope about a half-kilometer below them.  “What lovely country,” she said. “Mary, you should stay behind the front line,” Hadrian told her.  “I just wanted to look around.”“This is not a tour,” the Marine said.  Activating the magnifier in his VDU, he scanned the area below. “Cliffs too steep, need to go around,” Catalina said, indicating a path that appeared to lead down into the village below.  Vasily looked down into the dell, which appeared to be deserted.  There was no sign of occupancy, no vehicles, no power signatures strong enough to show up on their sensors.  He nodded for Catalina to investigate, while he gestured for the others to move into positions where they could monitor without being seen from below. Catalina made her way slowly down the trail, keeping to cover as much as possible.  She reached the dell without incident, and was able to move faster as the path leveled out, and she approached the nearest of the buildings.  They looked old and neglected, but their windows and doors were all intact.  She was still about fifty meters off when a voice interrupted her.  “Hsst!  Hold up!”  She turned to see Vala Night emerge from a position of concealment among the rocks.  The agent was clad in a dark body suit that was bulky enough to conceal armor or any manner of equipment under it.  Her bright red hair was tied up under a beret that tilted at a rakish angle across her brow.  “I have to admit, you’re good, Agent DeFarrago,” she said.  “I almost didn’t see you.”  She gestured toward the buildings.  “The entire village is rigged.  We’re safe here, but we shouldn’t linger.”Catalina waved up to the others.  They’d agreed to keep radio silence as much as possible, even with the tightband units their suits used.  It took about ten minutes for the others to make their way down.“Hello, I’m Mary,” Mary said.“Charmed,” Vala said, already turning toward a faint path that they could just see rising out of the dell.  “Watch your step,” she said.  “They’ve put in sonic mines all over the approaches.  There’s one right there, can you see it.”Vasily turned up his visual scanners, and did see the faint telltale, an almost imperceptible energy signature.  Without having it pointed out, he suspected he never would have seen it until he’d stepped close enough to activate its proximity sensor. “Wonderful,” Hadrian said.  “They seem to be relying more on sensors and remotes rather than patrols,” Vala told them, “But that could change.”“Can you mark their locations?” Jane asked. “That would save us time and bother,” Hadrian said. “Believe me, I’ve tried,” Vala said.  “For every one I see… well, let’s just say we should all be very, very careful.  I believe I’ve found  a way through the mountains that can bring us up onto the castle undetected.  This way.  And no noise if you can help it.  Put your phones on ‘vibrate’.”“Lead on,” Hadrian said.  She led them up the trail, which grew rougher as they left the abandoned village behind them.  They ascended to a ridge that they quickly passed along to another path that led to a wooded vale below.  Vala paused there.  “This is an old game trail,” she told them.  “Who knows what sort of games one might find around here, eh, Kasprjak?”“I defer to your experience,” the Russian said.  “This looks like the easiest route,” she continued, indicating the trail.  “But there are motion sensors all along the base of this ridge.  There’s another way, not quite as easy.  But it might be less trouble.”“At X-COM, we all about the hard way,” Vasily commented. “Glad I’m not afraid of heights,” James commented.  The path that Vala had led them to ran along the edge of a cliff, with a nearly-sheer mountain to one side and a fifty-meter drop to the other.  The agent was in the lead, moving with perfect balance along the ledge, which ranged from two meters across to as little as half that in a few places.  Vasily and Hadrian had the hardest time, their bulky suits and the heavy burdens they carried throwing off their center of gravity enough to make negotiating tight spaces a dicey business.  But they all made it across safely, and soon they were making their way back down into the vale they’d seen earlier.  There was no path here, not even a hint of a trail, but they were able to make it to a jutting outcrop that overlooked a straight drop of maybe twenty meters to the valley floor below.  To their left there was a cleft that seemed to offer a more navigable route down, but Vala shook her head as Hadrian took a look in that direction.“Motion sensor down there,” she said.  “Scouted it earlier.  No way to get close enough without setting it off.”Catalina took a rope from one of the compartments built into her armor.  “Ah, good,” Vala said.  “I was worried about our ankles there for a  moment.  Here.  Tie it to the rock, or to the Russian, and lower me down.”Catalina secured the end of the rope, rigging it to facilitate a quick abseil down the line.  Vala slipped over the edge and shimmied down the rope without apparent effort.   Jane followed Vala down with equal ease.  Hadrian followed, but Mary hesitated at the rope.  “Come on, Vas, you could carry Mary down.”“I can make it,” the Indian doctor said.  “I passed physical training, like everyone else.”  Catalina handed her the line.  “Look, just pass it around behind your backside and wrap it around your arm for control.”Mary dropped down and slid awkwardly down the line.  She was going fast when she landed, but Hadrian and Jane were there to catch her and help her down. “Is like I say,” Vasily said, taking the rope.  “We all about the hard way.”Catalina was the last to go, and she shifted the rigging of the rope to allow her to unravel it with a sharp tug once she was down.  But as she started down, she slipped on the edge.  Her legs shot out from under her, and her desperate grab for the rope missed, the line jerking out of her grasp as her faceplate scraped against the outcrop and then she was falling, plummeting down toward the ground twenty meters below. Author’s Note: Vanya Mia had a gift for rolling “1”s on skill checks, I think she managed 3 or 4 of them over the course of the campaign. <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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