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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5331883" data-attributes="member: 143">Session 29 (November 17, 2008)Chapter 133The other Alphas stared in surprise at the alien that had dealt so handily with Catalina, but they were quick to respond.  Hadrian actually got a shot off, his plasma bolt exploding against the alien’s torso, but that didn’t stop it as it surged forward, grabbing Vasily and charging forward until it slammed him against the thick mass of a pillar four paces further back.  The impact caused the entire column to shake, and bits of stone flaked off, tumbling down from the ceiling like hail.  Vasily growled and felt a hot pain erupt in his back, but he’d held onto his gun, and as the alien’s jaws snapped at his faceplace he pulled the trigger.  The white burst flared up between them, half blinding him, the heat searing him even through the layered insulation of his armor.  But the alien felt it a lot worse, falling back as the connection between them was broken.  Vasily slammed the weapon across its brow, knocking the alien back another step.  “So much for scary terror weapon, huh!” he yelled at it.  The alien shrieked and lunged at him again, but Vasily fell onto his rump, and the alien’s claws tore into the stone of the pillar, narrowly missing him.  He poked the barrel of his cannon into its gut and fired again.Jane and Hadrian had started to come to the Russian’s aid, but Mary’s scream had turned them around.  The second chyrssalid was on top of her, its claws tearing into her armor.  Mary screamed as it pinned her under its weight, all but helpless to do so much as squirm.  Hadrian and Jane blasted the thing, the bolts punching into its chitinous body, but it refused to release its grip.  Only when Hadrian approached to almost point-blank range, still firing, did it rise up, lunging at him, its claws tearing toward his face.  The Marine dodged back but was clipped by that wild swing, the glancing hit still strong enough to knock him roughly to the ground.  The alien sprang at him, but like Vasily the tough soldier had kept his grip on his gun, and he let the chryssalid impale itself on the barrel before he fired.  The explosion seared Hadrian, but it knocked the alien over onto its back, where it lay there in a smoking and chittering heap. Vasily got up under the burned-out husk of the other creature, kicking it aside as he rose to his feet.  He started toward Catalina, but the British agent was already on her feet, still unsteady as the dose of regenerative serum she’d taken did its work.  She waved him off, and he headed back over to where Jane was helping Mary up.  The Indian doctor was conscious, but her face was a rictus of pain through the clear plastic of her faceplate. “Aaagggh,” she said, as she fumbled at one of the cargo compartments in her armor.  “I think Mary is infected,” Jane said.  “That not good,” Vasily said, kneeling next to the injured doctor as she drew out the vial of countermeasure she herself had helped create.  She waved off Vasily’s hand and flipped open the access port beneath the chest plate of her armor.  The vial slid into the slot, and as she closed it there was a slight hiss, and she stiffened.  The others watched and waited as she lay there against the pillar, breathing deeply.  “I… I’ll be okay,” she said.  “I feel sick, but I’ll make it.”“It looks like the self-sealing features of the armor dealt with the gash,” Jane told her.  “When we stop, I can try to make more permanent repairs.”“I’ll be all right,” Mary insisted, allowing Vasily and Jane to help her to her feet. “Okay, no need to run forward all time, can be rearguard for a bit if you want,” Vasily said.  “Okay?”“I… I just want to help,” she managed.“You helping just fine.  Catalina, that passage you find, it lead forward?”The agent nodded.  “Looks like it.”“All right.  Let’s move out.”</blockquote>

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