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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5321646" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks, I started out making him a real rat bastard, but he sort of grew on me toward the end. The sequel will be entitled Soul of a Coward, and should be the second of an eventual trilogy if all works out as planned. Regarding Vala, we will see her again before the very end. The Mars mission begins this Friday. I made some editorial changes to the narrative here and there to suit the story, although I still kept the majority of the dialogue as it happened in-game. James's player also missed the first session of the Mars attack, so I had to come up with a way to bring him in mid-mission. * * * * *Session 28 (November 10, 2008)Chapter 129The Alphas didn’t get much of a chance to rest when they disembarked from the Lightning, seven hours after they’d lifted off from the base in France.  Battered, burned, and overall exhausted, they nevertheless existed the craft under their own power, a certain pride in their eyes as the unit teams rushed forward.  The engineering team had pride of place, as they accepted the three heavy containment vessels that held the precious Elerium-115.  Stan’s medical teams were quick on their heels, though, helping the injured Alphas.  The medicos knew better by now than to bring gurneys to the hangar deck, but some of the Alphas looked like they could have used them.Vasily laid his plasma cannon down on a rolling cart that sagged under its weight.  His eyes were on the last figure waiting near the hangar exit.  Catalina saw as well, and she shook of the medic trying to ease off the pressure bandage covering her right arm, and came forward to stand beside him. “Agent Drake,” Catalina said. “Don’t get too cozy,” Drake said.  “Get cleaned up, get your wounds treated.  Briefing in thirty minutes.”She turned and walked away.  Mary shuffled up to join them.  “She can’t be serious,” she said, running a hand through her lustrous black hair, now sodden with sweat, dirt, and ash.  “I not know her to be unserious.  Ever.”The Alphas were clean and in fresh clothes when they arrived at the briefing room, but they otherwise looked like candidates for intensive care, with bandages visible on most of them.  They arrived in the midst of an argument, which continued unabated as the tired X-COM operatives shuffled into the room.  “I’m telling you, seven weeks is too long,” Drake was saying, punctuating her statement by slamming her fist onto the table in front of her.“We can’t change the rules of physics, agent Drake!” Grace countered.  Garret turned as the Alphas entered.  “Ah, good, Alpha.  Sorry to keep you from your rest, but we have to make some decisions.  And they are likely going to affect you.”“Likely?” Doctor Wagner asked. Counselor Beauvais spoke up from the far end of the table.  “They should have more of a say than anyone else at this table.”  Drake glared at her, but Joan met her gaze without flinching. “The cryo units are ready,” Stan White said.  “That won’t be the issue.  Seven days or seven weeks… but any longer than that, and we could have tissue damage.”“Have they been tested?” Joan asked. “Sure,” Stan said. “Yes, I saw the rabbits,” Drake said. The Alphas shared a dubious look, but Garret held up a hand to forestall them.  “Here’s the situation.  We now have enough Elerium to get to Mars and back.  The Avenger tests out.”“Still haven’t done a test outside of atmo,” Ken Yushi said. “Sure,” Drake shot back.  “Send our one copy of the ship out on a joyride…”“This is a war, not a flight test program,” James said.  “We have to take some chances if we want to win.”“Please, everyone,” Garret said, cutting off the incipient argument.  “Mars is not at its closest right now, but we can’t wait.  All of our intel suggests that the alien dreadnought will be completed in a matter of months.”“If not sooner,” Drake added, under her breath, but loud enough so that everyone at the table could hear her.  Garret glanced at her, but continued, “The commander…”Drake cut him off with a slap of her palm on the table.  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe it was lying?  Christ, Garret, do you know what’s at stake here if you’re wrong?”Garret’s expression didn’t change.  “I think we all know what’s stake, Inise.”Vasily rose half up out of his chair.  “Please, what is problem?”“Yeah, fill us in, please,” Jane said, “since we’re next on the list of rabbits.”“Doctor Wagner,” Garret said.  “Can you bring up the map?”Wagner touched her screen, and a map of the solar system appeared on the big screen, with a series of dotted lines connecting Earth and Mars.  “Here is the problem,” Wagner said, highlighting one of the trajectories.  “With a small margin of error, we can arrange for a successful flight of seven weeks each way.  Forty-seven days, to be exact.  As Stan noted, we would keep you in cryonic storage for most of the flight.”“Preserve muscle mass that way,” James said, nodding.“Necessary to keep you healthy,” Stan said.  “The Avenger’s a marvel, but its life support systems can’t sustain eight people for that long in such a crowded space.”“Plus you get to avoid the pleasant sensation of high-G burns at both ends,” Ken added.  “Man, I am not looking forward to that.”“So what is problem?” Vasily repeated.“The problem is the timeline,” Garret responded.  “Our interrogation of the alien commander indicated that the alien dreadnought would be ready for launch within a window of forty-one to fifty-three days.”“If he wasn’t lying,” Drake reminded them. “Ech,” Vasily said, “But… you saying there is way to get there faster?”“We could go with a more powerful burn,” Wagner said.  “Accelerate to 3.4 Gs, double the length time that the engines fire.”“I need this in dumb soldier talk,” Vasily said. “One way trip,” James said.  “She’s talking about a one-way trip.”Vasily blinked.  “It means you fly faster if you burn up all your fuel on the way there, you big Russian,” Drake said. Wagner nodded.  “If you fire at a full burn for sixteen hours at the start and finish of the trip, travel time is reduced to thirty-two days.”“You could find fuel there,” Grace said.  “I could rig up an Elerium injection matrix, plug and play.”There was a moment of silence around the table.  “This is a decision that cannot be made for you,” Garret said.  “I’m in,” James said.  “One way mission or not, this is our only chance.”“I half thought we’d be in for a one way trip anyway,” Catalina said.  “Queen and country and all that, never was truer, really.  I’m in.”“Earlier’s better, greater chance of surprise,” Hadrian said.“Well, if we face facts,” Vasily said.  “We going further than any human ever gone before, into base of most hostile, dangerous things we ever known.  Is kind of likely we going to die there, so guess it not a problem if we go fast.”Garret nodded.  “We launch in three days.  It will take that long to prep the ship.  In the interim, we’re going all out, a last-ditch effort on research, manufacturing, everything.  Alpha, you’re in for seven hours of sack time, and then check your schedules.  Every hour of the next three days is spoken for.  As of now, everything in X-COM goes to the support of this mission.  Any more questions?  All right.  This is it, people.  Dismissed.”</blockquote>

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