UFO FanFic - Chapter 2

[The Veteran]

"Well quite frankly I'm baffled sir..."

 

Rick sighed, two and a half hours of his life wasted just so a shrink could be baffled by him...

 

"I'm going to have to look into this but..."

 

Rick perked up. IT was starting to sound like this appointment may have a vague conclusion after all.

 

"I think... You see... Well..."

 

"What is it Doc? Do I have 24 hours to live or something cos you seem to be having a hell of a time bringing yourself to tell me the news..."

 

"I'm sorry, it's just..." He paused again but must have had some psychic tendencies himself to realise that remaining silent would see him in the med-lab permanently. "You're an anomaly." He said finally.

 

"I'm an anomaly? What does that mean, am I a black hole?"

 

"The thing is, the tests we've given you today have been carried out before on many soldiers who have all responded to the stimulus at least in some small way..."

 

"What tests?" queried Rick, "the only stimulus I've had all afternoon was that nurse about half an hour ago..."

 

The doctor glanced down at his notebook and crossed off the only comment he had made.

 

"Well that makes you even more of an anomaly," he said flicking the blank piece of paper over in his hands.

 

"Why am I an anomaly" said Rick in frustration, "what tests? What are you talking about?"

 

"Please calm down, it's nothing sinister I assure you... You see the tests I'm referring to aren't like any tests you can think of. I was examining your subconscious mind, mental instinct, reflex, all sorts of involuntary functions of the body and mind."

 

Rick looked at him questionably and wondered what he was talking about.

 

"You were referred to me by the base commander, I'm sure you already know that. He was concerned that you were showing signs of susceptibility to the alien 'mind control' that several of our soldiers have been experiencing."

 

Rick nodded slowly, having understood several of the simpler words used.

 

"In the past however," continued the doctor, "soldiers who have experienced the symptoms you described have afterwards proved to be very susceptible to subconscious stimulation, subliminal messaging, sounds and images hidden in the area around you now have proved very effective. Some of the men I have tested in the past have performed simple tasks without even knowing they have done so at the end of the test. You however..."

 

"So?..." Rick was finally piecing together what the doctor was saying to him but he still didn't know what to make of it.

 

The doctor leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice to the tone used by one describing an idea they expect to be worth stealing. "I have tried everything I know today to influence you and it hasn't had the slightest effect on you. I am of the personal opinion that you are incredibly defended against the attacks that these soldiers have been subject to but the evidence kicks up a worrying theory."

 

The doctor sat back in his chair and placed each fingertip against it's opposed counterpart one at a time.

 

"What evidence? What theory?" asked Rick now fully aware of what was being told to him and very intrigued by himself.

 

"The fact that you have felt effects similar to those described by other soldiers suggests that you are in fact susceptible to these mental attacks. The fact that you are not responding to any of the tests I have set for you however, suggests you have a very high level of mental strength..."

 

"So what's the theory?" asked Rick curiously.

 

"Either there is a flaw with my testing which I refuse to believe, or... There are stronger enemies out there waiting for us than these Sectoids..."

 

Rick had been waiting for just such a theory and the second it was said he closed his eyes tightly, hoping it would go away. These greys were bad enough but if there were more out there who knows what they'd be? Flying aliens? Swimming aliens? Maybe both! There could be enemies the size of houses out there carrying howitzers as sidearms...

 

Rick opened his eyes again to see everything unchanged. This was a problem he would have to face up to it seemed. He just hoped he would have a little time before that happened.

 

Rick stood to leave and looked down at the cup he was holding.

 

"Doc," he said looking up at him. "Is one of these tests of yours making a brew by any chance?"

 

The doctor looked at the cup in Rick's hand and smiled, "You know it is! Now why haven't I written that down anywhere?" He started flicking through his notes and then looked up at Rick who was holding out his empty cup.

 

Rick grinned from ear to ear and the Doctor took his cup instinctively.

 

"It was a good brew, thanks Doc" Rick turned away and left with a wink.

[FullAuto]

"Don't look so anxious. We probably won't have to kill anyone."

Valerie Deacon looked up from her coffee and decided Pickering's smile was meant to be reassuring. Sat opposite her, loading magazines, his scarred face looked more demonic than friendly in the wan interior lighting.

"Probably." Jasper said, yawning.

He was laid out on the floor in a thick sleeping bag, head pillowed on a lumpy backpack. His normally spiky hair lay flat, and he yawned again as he rolled over to face the fuselage.

Deacon felt her stomach give a little lurch, and decided coffee had been a mistake. The flight had been smooth so far, and that was the only reason she hadn't thrown up. Her hands were both cold and sweaty, her stomach was unsteady and she was far too hot. She stripped her jacket off quickly, pushing it down behind her to cushion her back and buttocks. The seats were obviously military issue, both small and uncomfortable. She glanced across at Pickering as her pistol caught on something, jamming the barrel into her kidney.

How did he cope? He was a foot taller and had to weigh twice as much.

Pickering saw her looking and misinterpreted it again. "Dump the coffee, drink water or milk. Nothing acidic. Makes you feel like it's eating through your stomach."

Deacon managed a wan smile, wedging her cup between a seat back and the fuselage.

Pickering thumbed bullets into another magazine even as he spoke, punctuating each sentence with a click. "It's normal. You learn to use it. Then you get used to it. Eventually, you stop noticing it. It's the difference between riding and being dragged."

She drew her pistol, bulkier than Pickering's Glock, looking slightly absurd in her small hands. "Never really done anything like this before."

"That's alright." Click. "We probably won't get into any drama anyway."

"Probably." Jasper echoed again, rolling back over to face them.

Pickering shook his head. "Ignore him. And dump your twenty-three. It's X-Com issue, we don't want it getting traced."

Deacon unclipped her pancake holster from behind her right hip, slipping the pistol into it and tucking it between her thighs. The mag carrier came off next, from behind her left hip. She passed them both to Pickering, wincing as she felt sore skin press back against the hard seat.

-just an analyst no dirty work-

Pickering worked the holster a little between his hands. "Leather. Not broken in either, eh?"

"Sorry. I usually drive a desk." Deacon cleared her throat. "Most I've ever done is a walk past."

"That's all this should amount to." Pickering assured her. "Jasper."

"Hmm?" He sat up, pushing the sleeping bag down to his waist.

"Dump your gun and your mags. You won't be needing them."

Jasper ran a hand through his hair, blinking repeatedly. "Didn't pick one up."

"Good. We'll grab weapons Stateside." Pickering pushed a magazine into his Glock, snapped back the slide and holstered up. "First job is to make kissy faces at the proper Yank politicians. Second, we get that laser pistol. Thirdly, get access to the crashed UFO at the bottom of the Potomac. Hopefully, we can take care of one and three at the same time."

"Ok. How are we going to do that?" Jasper kicked himself free of the sleeping bag and got up. "Dying for a piss, 'scuse me."

He moved past them, swaying slightly, grabbing up an empty bottle.

Deacon turned back to Pickering, blushing.

Pickering leaned back in his seat. "Deacon can be the X-Com rep. We'll just be the heavies. We'll stand behind her, look suitably menacing."

Jasper whistled merrily as he urinated.

"The Yanks will take it a lot better coming from one of their own. Nothing puts their noses out of joint than playing second fiddle to some jumped-up European country." Pickering grinned. "If they think we're just muscle, they'll be a lot happier. Think you can handle that?"

Deacon nodded automatically, panicking inside.

"We present ourselves as a Yank-led effort, that keeps the rabid anti-one-world crowd off our back. We apologise, blame whoever and whatever else we can. Basically be slimy little maggots. Politicians are used to that." Pickering cast an annoyed glance at Jasper when he broke wind noisily. "Recovering the laser pistol shouldn't be a problem, I'll sort some diving gear along with the weapons. I don't suppose either of you have any experience."

Jasper's flow trailed off and he zipped up and capped the bottle. "Nope."

Deacon shook her head. "Sorry."

"Ok. I'll go down for it and you two just wait up top for me." Pickering leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. "No problem."

"I've never done any BG work." Jasper made his way back to them, bottle hanging loosely from his hand.

"I haven't done much." Pickering confessed. "It's just like operating normally, watch for threats and surveillance. Except you have to protect your principal as well as stay alive. Can get tricky."

He eyed Deacon.

"Got an advantage this time though. They won't reckon on our rep being armed."

Jasper plopped himself down into a seat by Pickering. "Yeah. Nasty surprise time."

Deacon began to feel like a worm on a hook. Pickering leaned toward her. "Have you ever used a submachine gun?"

 

 

Terrick hurried along the road to the gate. Getting to the surface had been easy. Getting out of the gate would be a different matter.

His pistol bumped his stomach. The holster was a little bit loose. Covered by his T-shirt, it was still easy enough to draw quickly. The laser pistol was in another holster at the small of his back, covered by his T-shirt and his jacket. Though bulky, the jacket was baggy enough to cover it, and with his pockets weighed down with magazines, it wouldn't flip up in a strong wind.

He could use it in an emergency. If he had to. Two mags on his left hip, two more in each jacket pocket. Six spare mags, one loaded, eighty-four rounds in total.

If he got into a situation that needed more than that he was caught anyway.

The gatehouse was occupied; one soldier sat at the window, working on a crossword.

Terrick slowed his pace, composing his features and wiping the sweat away with a jacket sleeve. "Excuse me."

The guard looked up. Thin and well-tanned, eyes set in a permanent squint, he pursed his lips contemplatively. "Yeah?"

"I need to go out."

"No chance, mate, sorry. Last time I did that I got my arse kicked good and proper." He went back to his crossword.

-Green will wake up soon I'm bleeding-

Terrick took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as his swelling lung pushed against something inside him that had been broken by the bullet. "I really need to go."

The pain was making him sweat. His anxiety was making him dizzy. Blood loss was going to knock him out before he could hand the pistol over.

-no no no no no no-

"Sorry." The guard shrugged, not looking up from his crossword.

Terrick looked back down the road, then out past the gate. No one. No vehicles. No patrols. He gave it one last try. "Please. I need to see my family."

"I know how it is, mate. I can't." The guard nibbled on his pen.

Terrick evaluated the situation as best he could through his fear and pain. No way to get into the gatehouse before the guard raised the alarm. No way to keep the guard covered while breaking in.

He stepped in close, lifting his T-shirt and drawing his gun. The guard looked up.

Terrick fired. The .45 bullet smashed into the guard's stomach and knocked him backward off the chair. Terrick moved round to the back, holstering the 23, noting the parked Humvee. One well-placed heel strike just below the handle popped the door open.

His side cramped up with pain.

He limped in, stepped over the groaning guard and hit the green button below the 'GATE' sign on the wall. The gate began to hum open. Terrick turned, stepping over the guard again, and took a set of keys off the wall. He nudged the guard with his foot. "You'll live."

He couldn't manage another kick, and so knelt and punched, twice, sharp vicious jabs.

The guard went out like a light.

Terrick tried to get up and fell, his side locking up completely. He felt blood slip down his side, slow and slick. He clawed his way up the wall, smearing blood, and leaned against it, limping, sliding along the wall as he moved.

The gatehouse phone began to ring.

-not good-

He hurried, staggering through the doorway and managing to stay upright across the vast plain between the gatehouse and the adjacent Humvee. His side simply froze up as he reached the vehicle, yanking the door open and falling in.

He fumbled for an ignition for several minutes, slumped forward onto the wheel, before budging the starter button accidentally. The engine rumbled, softly, steadily.

He tossed the keys out of the window, shaking his head

Time to go.

[Alitorious]

Ryan was still sour about the midnight shift, but several kilometres away and thousands of feet in the air, it didn't feel so bad. Flying hadn't quite lost its charm with him yet. When you're in the cockpit, you're invincible. You're in control. Hell, you even defy nature herself by defeating gravity.

Still, it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. Because of his indignation at being wrongfully disciplined, Ryan nearly forgot to wonder why he was patrolling Washington in peacetime. Had a war started that they didn't know about?

 

Down below, a Fox News van was trying to set up by the Potomac River. Several cranes could be seen, getting ready to hoist something out of the river. There were plenty of reports earlier in the day that a UFO had been shot down into the river. Patricia Keynes didn't quite know what to think about those, but something was up. The military had cordoned off the site, and trucks and even tanks could be seen around. Patricia even thought that she could see some men in those hazardous materials suits. She urged her cameraman to get set up faster. They had picked a concealed location, but it was inevitable that the army or something would evict them quickly.

A few divers had surfaced on the lake, and gave the thumbs-up to the crane operators. The cranes winched up the object and it emerged from the lake. At first Patricia thought that its large grey surface suggested that it was a whale, but more of it was revealed.

"Oh my God," she muttered. Behind her, the cameraman started recording. There was no way that was anything but a UFO from outer space. It had a distinct saucer shape to it as well, although two 'wings' could be seen off to the side. Though it was midnight, city lights illuminated enough so that Patricia thought she could make out scorch marks and large holes which meant that it must have been shot down. The military couldn't try that "neither confirm nor deny" crap with this.

The UFO was swaying gently between the cranes. Then it jarred slightly as a wire or something slipped.

Patricia's insides froze. She watched as what looked like the body of a small child fell out of a hole and plunged into the waters below.

"Did you get that? Tell me you got that"

 

 

Back on the other side of the world, Pine Gap's powerful active radar system continually swept out and detected many objects. Most of the things it detected were terrestrial aircraft, and the computer matched up the contacts to known flights or simply registered the aircraft's transponder signal. What was left was mostly erratic data, left over from the power of Pine Gap's radar. After the computer filtered out weather patterns and other contacts with nonsensical movement patterns, not much was left. The operator musing over all of this supposed that a meteor could probably set off the detector, but what were the chances of that happening?

 

An alarm brought him out of his trance. The contact was near the edge, if not farther than, the range of the radar. In truth, the contact was actually out of line-of-sight of the radar station itself, and it is only because the radio waves reflected off the ionized layers in the Earth's atmosphere that it could be detected. If that was the case... then this contact would be large. The technician checked again. Although it was faint, the profile definitely matched that of one of the alien's terror ships.

The readout for the UFO's direction started to come through, which was based on both Doppler readings and time-averaged estimation. The operator did a double-take.

It was heading towards Washington. And fast.

 

 

"Gia? Gia, are you there?" cracked the radio inside the Hurricane's cockpit. Gia wasn't there to answer it, as she was standing by the lake, trying to peer in with her flashlight to see through the hole in the ice. It was cold in the night air.

"This is stupid," she said to herself.

 

 

"Ramson? Sheedy?" came Bolling base. "You are directed to head on course one-four-seven and intercept a contact. Do not fire, but stay alert. We are scrambling reinforcements. You are hereby designated Talon flight."

"Roger, Command," confirmed Donald.

"What's this about?" inquired Ryan.

"I don't know... but I have a bad feeling about it."

"Talon, contact is now at heading one-one-four, shift your course to zero-eight-nine to intercept. It is at one-six-zero miles,"directed Control.

That takes us directly over the city! Ramson noticed. Then he thought about the coordinates some more, and realized that this thing must be moving fast. Definitely faster than that prototype earlier that day.

"Contact should be in your radar range now, Talon. Hold your fire." advised Control. As if on cue, the contact showed up on his screen in front of him. Information also showed up on his heads-up-display. Ramson could hardly believe what was showing up. And, more importantly, at this rate he wouldn't intercept before it got to the city.

"Uh, Bighorn?" asked Ryan. "Is that a UFO?"

"I'm not sure," replied Ramson. "Mach seven-point-three... only think I know goes that fast is the Space Shuttle coming in re-entry. ICBM's also go that fast, but they don't fly like that."

"So it's a UFO."

"We'll know when we see it."

The two Falcons, or Vipers as most pilots and crew liked to call them, continued on at over the speed of sound. Despite that, the UFO would reach the city minutes before they got there. The two pilots, and all those at NORAD control and even back at Pine Gap, watched helplessly as the alien ship bore down on the city.

Then it just stopped. From seven times faster than the speed of sound to zero airspeed. Zero.

"Like hell this isn't anything but a UFO," Ramson said to his wingmate.

 

 

"Oh my god, what is that?" yelled Patricia over the loud thrumming sound. She pointed to the grey mass floating above, as if anyone could miss it after it had passed scarcely a dozen feet over their heads. It was also humming like a mess of giant bees. Upon a closer look, it was an exact twin of the UFO just dredged out of the waters, only this one obviously had no battle damage.

A green glow appeared on the side of the UFO facing the other. Barely a second later, a blinding beam of green light lanced out towards the other, penetrating the hull easily. The beam of plasma continued until it passed through one of the power generators, irradiating a small amount of elerium with radiation and forcing it to undergo its characteristic anti-matter reaction. It was lucky that only a small amount of elerium actually reacted - the rest was simply incinerated in the explosion.. Despite this, the energy of the explosion was still immense. However, the alien alloys that made up the hull kept their structural integrity amazingly well. It was only when a large portion of the hull melted that the explosion's full force, now significantly less, was released on the city.

Patricia was engulfed in a world of heat and light and weightlessness. It was only after she landed, a few metres behind her, that the sky faded back to blackness and the cool night air blew over her gently. Surprised at still being conscious, Patricia sat up and looked back where the UFOs were. Amazingly, the explosion did not do much damage. One of the cranes was toppled over, and several buildings had scorch marks, but that was about it. The one UFO that was being dragged out of the river was completely gone. Whatever chunks of alien metal were left had already sank to the bottom of the river. The other UFO hovered anxiously in the air, as if it were contemplating its next move.

 

 

The two pilots swore. The light of the explosion was unmistakable.

"Talon to command. Target has unleashed a payload on the city. Requesting to engage."

"Command to Talon. Explosion has been confirmed over the city. You are authorized to engage. Bring it down, boys."

"Roger, Command. Ryan, lock and load Sidewinders."

"Gotcha."

Ramson armed his missiles and confirmed weapons lock. The buzz signalling it in his ears was probably the sweetest thing he'd heard all night. He thumbed the trigger twice.

"Ramson, Fox Two, Fox Two, Ripple."

"Sheedy, Fox Two, Fox Two, Ripple."

Two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles fired from the wingtips of each Viper, and rocketed towards the alien ship. When they were about midway to the target, a green glow appeared on their side of the UFO.

Ramson's instincts screamed at him: Danger!

"Evade" Ramson yelled, even as he did so himself. Immediately a green beam lanced out from the UFO, passing much too close for comfort to his own fighter.

"Bogey is returning fire"

Meanwhile, the heat-seeking missiles bore down on the alien saucer. They had a firm lock on the hull, which was still hot from re-entry into the atmosphere, and was also contrasted against the cool landscape behind it.

"They all hit" exclaimed Ryan. "Confirmed! Four direct hits... the hell?"

The smoke from the explosions had cleared, and the alien ship was still floating there. The only effect the missiles had were to blemish its otherwise grey hull with scorch marks.

"Hit it with Slammers," Donald ordered. He primed the two AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles carried underneath his wings.

"Ramson, Fox Three, Fox Three, Ripple." He thumbed the trigger twice, and the two missiles dropped a short distance before activating their rocket propellant allowing them to race towards their target.

"Sheedy, Fox Three, Fox-"

A green glow had appeared on the side of the alien craft, and fired its lethal plasma cannon before Donald could let off a warning. The beam hit a fuel tank on Ryan Sheedy's aircraft, and it was engulfed in a fireball. He had no chance to eject.

Both missiles had been fired from each aircraft, but one was sent off course by the explosion. The remaining three fire-and-forget missiles slammed into the side of the alien craft and covered it with explosions.

 

 

Her cameraman being knocked unconscious, Patricia picked up his camera and filmed the conflict between the UFO and the Air Force. She grinned as the second set of explosions rocked the alien craft. She was going to get the Pulitzer Prize for sure.

It looked like the aliens had enough, because the humming of the alien's engines grew louder. It felt like the humming penetrated her bones. A second later, the alien craft accelerated away and vanished from sight.

Although she didn't know it, the amplified magneto-gravitic field from the elerium engines wiped clean the magnetic tape, and her chances at being taken seriously were gone with it.

 

 

Ramson swore. The aliens (What else could they be?) had killed his friend, taken half a dozen missiles, and was still alive and running away!

In desperation, he launched his two remaining Sidewinders. They covered the distance between him and the UFO quickly. However, a green bolt shot out, destroying one of the missiles. The other managed to hit the fleeing ship, but the alien craft just shrugged it off and continued heading to space.

[storm turmoil]

Pine Gap base, workshop 1, 2.00am

 

two figures slumped over a workshop bench. Though in truth, the term slump implies tiredness, when frustration would be closer to the mark.

 

" So, Now what do we know?" Dana Farber took another sip of the sludge in her cup that most of the base would call 'coffee' and the rest of humanity would probably call in a hazmat team for.

 

The red haired engineer opposite her pushed his glasses back up on his nose and pulled out an object in each hand.

 

In his left hand he clasped a large Blue sphere, seemingly made of metal but with a strange tacky surface that seemed to defy catalogueing.

 

" This little gizmo is still giving us the runaround. it gives everyone bar me who handles it a headache and we haven't dared cut it open in case it turns out like these" He said, indicating the smaller purple sphere clutched in his right hand.

 

" Right. So much for Photon's breakthrough. Has he come round yet?" Dana asked, grinning.

 

" yeah. Though I wish he hadn't. if it comes to that, at that moment i was wishing I'd stuck with the UFO." David answered

 

" You know we can't do any work on it while it's on the ship. Well, while it's on that ship, anyway; we'll have to see about getting our own assigned ship if we get anymore intact UFO's"

 

" Can we?" David asked.

 

" Have you forgotten who you're working for?" She asked.

 

" Point. As for the Purple spheres, its almost as though they're meant as a knock out device, except that we had to hit it with a diamond drill to crack it, and there's no other way to get them open; there just doesn't seem to be a detonater of any kind involved."

 

" Life support capsules?" Dana wondered aloud.

 

" I don't know; The ships don't all seem to have them though, so I'd say no. Of course, I've no Idea what else they could be." He conceded.

 

" Maybe we could ask the troops tomorrow if they ever saw the aliens use them." Dana suggested.

 

" Now that, is a great idea. I'm glad one of us in this room has a brain"

 

" Flattery isn't going to get you anywhere, you know" she replied.

 

" It isn't flattery if it's true. I'm really only here because I embarassed the higher ups. That and I'm good with my hands."

 

" So what about this thing?" He asked, rolling the blue sphere carefully over to her. She picked it up for the fifth or sixth time that night, and as before, as soon as she did, her eyes bugged out slightly and her head had an unusually stuffed feeling, as if she had had something crammed into her ears until their was no more room.

 

" You say you don't get anything like this?" She asked him.

 

" Nope, just a prickling in my thumbs like static, but no headache." He told her.

 

" How's the busted knee doing?" She asked suddenly.

 

" It was only a sprain, and It's mostly better now. I can't believe I fell out of that tree trying to recover a few bits of blown up alien metal...come to think of it it, I can't believe I actually told you...." He said, his trailing into a hoarse whisper.

 

" ...Matter of fact I'm damn sure I didn't tell you...So how the hell do you know about that?" He exclaimed suddenly, Staring at her face, partly obscured byt the shiny blue sphere...

[Bomb Bloke]

Howitz wandered around around the labs, distracted by the sights of alien technology in pieces. He was slighty dissappointed to find the grenade intact. A slightly worried scientist who was trying to keep an eye on him inconspiciously had looked quite a bit more worried when he'd offered to help take the thing apart.

 

He was was just about to consult the man about his scrap of fabric, when he saw Rick come out of one of the small rooms that made up this part of the lab.

 

"Hiya. Doing some sight seeing as well?"

 

Rick looked around, slightly surprised.

 

"Nah. Command sent me down here to get my head checked." He looked slightly embarresed, and carried on when Howitz said nothing. "He thinks the aliens might have been playing with our minds again. I'm still not to sure about the whole idea, but the doc in there says I should be ok against that sort of stuff."

 

"Don't see why they'd want to check you out. I didn't see you acting up back there."

 

"If only because you tried to keep yourself out of sight of things half the time."

 

Howitz chuckled, and leant against a handy wall. "Well, whatever the boss says, I think we did alright. No casualties in our department, a heap of dead greys, and a UFO all to ourselves. I've got no idea who those other guys were, but they signed their own death warrents when they started pointing guns our way."

 

The other man shook his head. "Politics doesn't work like that, Jack. This mission could have gone very badly for us. I don't know who those guys were either, but apparently Genega does, and he thinks it means trouble."

 

"If they were supposed to be there, then X-Com should have been told. That's the entire point - anything to do with the aliens are supposed to go through us. If they were the local military, then they should have been called off. If they were diplomats, then I don't think the other countries will be too happy with them. Especially China." His brow wrinkled. "Which country did we end up in, anyway?", he added, half to himself.

 

-----------------

 

Green woke up, and found himself lying on Terrick's lower bunk. His head felt like it was full of seawater. He tried to sit up, but fell back down again as his vision lit up in red. What had happened? One minute he was saying hi to Martin, the next -

 

He groaned as his memory came back, the last sight of Terrick's rifle swinging at him puncuated by a sharp crack. He felt his head to see if it was bleeding. It was.

 

Swearing under his breath, he half fell off the bed to his feet, and staggered out the door of his room. He stood there for a moment, dazed, until he noticed a shape watching him.

 

"You allright,Green?"

 

It was Hiroshi Escalante, his squad leader.

 

"My room mate knocked me out..."

 

Escalante grabbed his shoulder to support the man, who looked ready to fall over again. "That would be Terrick?"

 

"Yeah." Green paused, still looking confused. "He had that laser gun he said he lost." He lurched out of Hiroshi's grip, back into the room. "It's gone. Where is he?" He cannoned out, starting to feel much more alert, and feeling very, very angry. "Where is he?"

 

-----------------

 

"Whatever." Rick shrugged and moved towards the corridor leading to the elevator.

 

"Hey, wait a minute - check this out. I forgot I had this before." Howitz held out the scrap of rag he'd ripped off the alien.

 

"What is it?"

 

"Alien costume."

 

Rick took the orange cloth, and fingered it slowly. "They don't wear costumes."

 

"This one did."

 

"Where's the rest of the alien?"

 

Howitz shrugged. It was his turn to look embarrised. "It got away. One minute I was running through the snow, after that big grey SkyRanger, the next thing I know this alien has landed on my head from out of nowhere and it's clawing at my face."

 

"It didn't just shoot you?"

 

Howitz shrugged again. "Don't think so. Those ray guns they fire make a heck of a noise. I tried to throw the thing off, and the next thing I know, it was gone. Couldn't see it anywhere. It was like it flew off, or something - there weren't any prints."

 

"Flew off..."

 

-----------------

 

The two men, Green and Hero, looked at the guard slumped behind his desk. The downed man moaned softly under his breath. The two soldiers exchanged glances, and Green picked up the gatehouse phone.

 

-----------------

 

"Maybe I need my head checked, too." Jack grinned. "But, I tore that grenade I got off it, and that rag was attached." His brow wrinkled again. "Seemed kinda tall for a Sectoid, but it all happened so fast... Nah, had to be a Sectoid. Nothing human-sized would have been that light." He shrugged a third time, and took the fabric back. "Anyway, I figure I should take this down to the - "

 

He was interupted by the deafening noise of the base alarm, blaring through every corridor. Rick appeared to mouth silently back at him, but neither man could hear anything over the din. They ran towards the lift upwards.

 

-----------------

 

It was probably doing him damage, but by now Terrick couldn't even feel the jarring as the humvee bounced across what passed for a track in the desert. His vision was blurring, and he had to blink often and hard to focus, but he was nearly there. A black chopper ahead sat in a dimly lit drop zone.

[The Veteran]

"Goddammit it's just my luck" Trigger, who had until very recently been sleeping, was halfway through getting properly dressed before finally giving up and leaving in just about enough uniform to not be shot on site.

 

"The one time I'm here on my own! The only one time ever! No Davies, no Gia, just me and some lunatic in a humvee..."

 

It wasn't just the lone pilot who was working up a frenzy, much of the base was up in arms and the skyranger was already in the air with a small quick response team along with two more teams deployed by landrover.

 

As Trigger strapped himself into his Hurricane he couldn't help feeling that it was a little excessive for the task at hand but there were very few other options from what he could tell.

 

"Ok, he's in an XCom vehicle so he'll be bugged straight away, that's a bonus..." he said to himself drowsily. "He's also been gone less than an hour so he can't be far. All I have to hope is that this isn't a planned getaway." If Terrick ditched the Humvee and took another form of land transport it would take a keen eye to catch him again. Fingers crossed he thought, if he changes vehicle it'll be to the airways not the motorways.

 

Rick meanwhile was similarly miffed to not only be part of a quick response team but also to be part of one in a landrover. Even if it did come to it there was no way he'd get to the action before being told to turn around.

 

Warlord was in the Skyranger and no more happy about it than Rick was to be on the ground. For some reason the three teams being sent now had absolutely nothing in common with the three core squads. Troops were mixed together every which way and Warlord didn't recognise anyone.

 

To an unsuspecting third party it would seem that only Terrick was particularly happy about being on the road and this would be true if only for the reason that he had escaped a top secret extraterriestrial research and combat base 100% alive.

 

As the chopper in front of him began to wind up it's rotors Terrick was finally beginning to feel like he'd made it. He screeched to a halt grabbing up a rifle and a sidearm from the ammunition locker and sprinted towards the chopper like his life depended on it... which realistically it probably did.

 

As he approached the chopper he smiled for a fraction of a second before he managed to seperate the pilots words from the chopper's background noise.

 

"We've got to go now! There's a contact approaching from the west and it's coming up on us fast"

 

Terrick's heart sank. "Ok, let's get out of here, fast... And stay low."

 

He climbed aboard and looked back over the dusty landscape below him as the humvee slowly disappeared behind them.

 

Now it was all just a matter of time. And a lot of luck...

[Bomb Bloke]

The Hurricane barreled past the road vehicles laden with soldiers. Trigger hadn't bothered gaining much more altitude then needed, and even in the darkness the men on the ground could see it easily.

 

It wasn't long before Doc's SkyRanger followed it's lead, then Cheese piloting the Osprey. All hands available had been crammed into transports at random, as soon as they could be found and directed somewhere.

 

The humvees bounced along the track half found and half forged by Terricks' vehicle. The soldiers inside felt the journey was just that little bit more pointless, as they bounced slowly along after the rapidly vanishing aircraft...

 

Eventually they found the helicopter's LZ, if only because Terrick's rover was more or less parked there. There was no chopper, not even any spent flares. Just a lot of dust and a circle of sand.

 

At least there was a lot more leg room, driving three Humvees back.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Terrick sat in the open door of the chopper, wedged in as best he could manage, rifle ready. He doubted he could aim it if he needed to, for all the good it would do, it was the best he could do not the puke, let alone focus... He felt his lungs would come up it he tried either, so mostly he concentrated on keeping his eyes open. He could barely see anything, even considering the wind in his face and the darkness of the night. It was all one dark blur.

 

The pilot wasn't flying directly away from the X-Com base, but was rather going in a large semi-circle that would place them on the other side. From there they'd head off towards the south, stop in the refuel, then take a long trip back around to the north coast of Australia. Any tails would - hopefully - continue in the same general direction as Terrick's land based route, thinking that the escapee would try to beeline away as fast as possible. They were flying low, real low, and if they could evade the radar signals then they'd be hard to find.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Genega stood in the command room, glaring at anything and anyone that fell under his gaze. One of the large monitors was devoted to the dossier for Martin Terrick. He could hardly believe it when he'd heard there'd been a breakout - sure, the odd soldier had been caught sneaking out for a bit of leg room, but someone actually trying to leave the base for good was unheard of. It had taken a while to sink in, he'd first thought one of the men captured that day was the fugitive, and it hadn't helped his mood when he found that this was not, in fact, the case.

 

Now he had a man on the run with confidential information and a weapon which, while rather primitive, could revolutionise the arms market .

 

First instinct was to catch or kill. On second thoughts, this must be the man who Pickering had been bugging him about...

 

He rubbed the back of his head. Hmm. He'd definitely prefer the man alive.

 

On the other hand, what if he could catch his contacts too? If any information had been leaked already, it would have to be contained.

 

But that would risk losing everything, and he couldn't afford that. He face hardened further; he couldn't afford this regardless of how it turned out, if anybody outside of X-Com found out...

 

He opened the comms channel to the Hurricane, and donned a headset.

[storm turmoil]

Green was wandering. at least, if he was honest, that's what he was doing, though he'd deny it if asked. He was bored, embarassed and angry, to say nothing of badly bruised too.

 

That's why he was once again snooping round the labs and workshops. It had been Howitz that put him on to that; apparently, they hadn't the slightest clue about some of what they were doing, and Green had to admit that watching something similar to what Jack had described, a roomful of scientists all keeling over from opening one of the alien gizmos, would lift his spirits no end.

 

it was the near incomprehensible swearing that told him he was onto a winner though, with cuss words from english, German, Chineses and Russian mangled into one incoherent whole.

 

Following his ears, Green headed off to seek what amusement its source could offer.

 

********

 

Warlord was tired, as he thought he'd never be, and it wasn't merely physical, either; this business with Terrick was a blight upon the very esprit du corps that had been pretty much the only thing keeping the emotionally exhusted 'Commers going recently. He could tell it was bad because Rick was only a few steps behind and yet wasn't needling him over anything.

 

Then the two heard the shouts.

 

"You can't just waltz in here and ..." Came the voice of Chris Black, yelling in a way that only an indignant scientist could manage. Rick and Warlord were still round the corner, but they never heard any response, just the heavy strides of someone clomping purposefully away.

 

When they rounded the corner, the first thing they saw was the trail of blood.

 

********

 

Daniel had to admit it, he was out of his element here. All he'd been able to catch was David Brown stalking angrily out of Workshop one, frantically wrapping a bundle of Gauze from a roll around his left hand and cursing loudly. He'd never even had the chance to ask what the shouting was all about, completely unable to get a word in edgeways.

 

needless to say, he'd given up any though of trying when he saw Brown tie the bandage off and place the roll on the bench, using his right hand to open one of the workshops tool drawers and withdraw a tool that looked awfully like a very sharp machete. An odd light had gleamed in his eyes and Daniel had felt a strange shudder pass down his spine as Brown Stalked out the workshop, blade in hand.

 

what puzzled him most, however, was the incessent muttering.

 

After all, what did he mean " I don' believe it, the damn bastards are no smarter than we are! and we fell for it"

 

********

 

Chris black was almost beside himself.

 

Rick and Warlord were merely puzzled.

 

" That's all he did?" Rick asked.

 

" Yeah, came in, one hand in a big bandage and a machete in the other, pulled out a sectoid specimen from one of the storage capsules and hacked the hand off"

 

" And then?" Rick asked. There was no response from Black.

 

" At least he'll be easy to follow" Warlord offered, smiling slightly in the first time for too long.

 

********

 

The trail of blood led back to workshop one. Rick and Warlord were a little surprised to find Daniel standing outside.

 

" What's going on in there" Warlord asked as a peal of maniacal laughter echoed out the door.

 

" Damned if I know. Brown came back with a machete in one hand and a bloody alien hand tucked under his arm. Then he started yelling 'hah! I knew it! I'm such a genius" Daniel offered.

 

Rick looked at Warlord. Warlord looked at Rick. Both nodded and pushed the door open.

 

Both hit the deck as the all too familiar howl and screech of massacred molecules heralded the arrival of nightmarish green fireballs, reflexes kicking in before their eyes or minds did.

 

Then they saw Brown cradling a roll of duct tape in the crook of his left arm and a still steaming alien pistol in his right hand, and grinning triumphantly. There was a blasted crater burned into a stack of ceramic mats stacked on the floor, and Rick vaguely noticed the prescence of the bloody alien arm on the bench.

 

 

Then his mind caught up, but Warlord beat him to the punch.

 

" You actually got one of the damn things to actually work?" Warlord asked. David just grinned slightly creepily.

 

********

 

" You're telling me the only thing keeping us from using the things was duct tape?" Genega commented, not quite able to believe his ears.

 

" Essentially, yes. The alien weapons all have morphic grips that adapt to the users hands, but under that layer, there's a pressure sensitive mesh that only allows activation if a certain pressure pattern is matched" David explained.

 

" So that's why you took the hand..."

 

" Yes, sir. The first firing was accidental, I was mashing the gun in a two handed grip to try and balance it and the gun went off. That's what set me wondering. After all, our own pistols have grip safeties, so why not theirs. we were searching for a high-tech answer when they'd simply used a low tech one"

 

" So all you need to get them to work..."

 

" Is to tape up the grips to match the alien handgrip pressure pattern. After that, you just put one of the clips in, and pull the trigger."

 

" And the burns...?" Genega asked, of the now more profesionally treated burns on David's left hand.

 

" Oh that. You just have to be careful not to put your hands on these areas on the weapon when you fire" he indicated on the unloaded pistol he carried. " they seem to be a sort of heat radiator and they get damn hot damn quick when the thing fires..."

 

"And the other Alien weapons..."

 

" we're looking into them now. hopefully, we'll be able to get them to work as well. on the other hand, we're still no nearer to understanding how they work, other than they're some kind of small scale plasma accelerator..."

 

" Plasma...weapons? this is starting to sound like a bad sci-fi plot..." Genega laughed. his morale was still low, but it was much improved from how it was. this was a real coup for x-com: solid proof of X-com's worth, and a victory the bureaucrats couldn't ignore.

 

" Sounds like it sir, but that is apparently what they are. we have no idea how it's done, yet, and we couldn't even begin to build one of these ourselves yet, but we should be able to use captured units. "

 

" That alone is invaluable. "

 

" Also, now we know how they cause damage, we have a better understanding of how to protect against it. Dana says that this could be a real boost to her work with the alien metals. It may be possible to make an armour that would absorb or deflect the plasma blasts." David explained. Genega's attention suddenly jumped.

 

" How sure are you?" Genega asked cautiously. Behind him, Rick and Warlord were glancing at each other, and maybe, just maybe, allowing their hopes to climb a little.

 

" Look at those Ceramic mats" David said. Genega did. the mats were shattered and molten, but he got the point. the ones at the bottom were untouched.

 

" Plasma causes damage through physical impact and heat transmission. Ceramics stop the heat, but shatter under the impact. metals stop the impact, but conduct the heat."

 

" Damned if you do, damned if you don't" Rick threw in. Genega shared the sentiment.

 

" Once, yes. But...with the conductive properties of the new alien metals, it may be possible to combine layers of metal plates with a conductive mesh fused into them that will spread both the heat, and spread the impact over a large surface area, while insulating the wearer using multilayered ceramic coatings on the inside" David explained.

 

" And you can build something like this?" Warlord asked, allowing himself to hope. The alien weapons had been a terrible twofold advantage. now, they had a chance to cut that advantage away.

 

" Dana thinks so. Once I finish with templating the captured weapons, I'll be assisting, but She sees no reason why we can't produce something that will offer at least some protection against a plasma blast"

 

Rick said it for all of them " this is the sort of thing we've needed all along." Warlord and Genega both nodded assent.

 

"Glad you feel that way. Because as of now, Mr Brown will be taking over an hour of your training time every day to instruct the troops in the operation of the Alien weapons. You never know when you might need to use a seized alien weapon." Genega informed them as he left the workshop.

 

Rick and Warlord Glared at the Engineer.

 

" What?" He asked, shrugging his shoulders.

[JellyfishGreen]

Genega still had the urgent matter of the escaping fugitive in his mind.

"At least the ground team had been able to confirm it was a helicopter," he said to the crew chiefs. "There's no way he'll outrun Trigger, but we don't know where to look. He'll be flying low, because he knows this place is bristling with radar, that will keep his speed lower too."

"But there's just too much space for any normal search pattern to work," said one of the staff.

"We can get the 'Ranger patrolling too, " injected Forrester. "It'll be able to fly all night, even with a team on board, if we want it to."

"That's the spirit," answered Genega. "Other than Alice Springs Airport, there's nothing but restricted airspace and desert for five hundred miles in any direction, that's why we picked this place. Get that Skyranger in the air as soon as the tanks are topped off. Keep your eyes alert for any contact and the channels open for any transmissions. The second he clicks on a radio I want a directional lock and a heavy jamming beam."

 

Trigger had streaked out in the direction the humvee had been heading, gone out to the max possible range the helicopter could have reached, and had found nothing. He was doing high speed zigzags on his return trip to cover more ground when Genega broke into his comm channel.

"Trigger, do a high-speed circle of the base at 200 kilometers radius - make sure that fella's not trying to throw us off the trail, while I try to think of a better search pattern."

"Sure thing, chief."

 

Trigger had half of his attention on his FLIR, which was the best chance of picking up a hot helicopter below him against the night desert, but he was mainly trying to cover the impossibly large search area as quick as possible. If he kept his speed up, he could probably circle the base and spiral outwards every ten minutes - but that would leave 20 km between each pass for the heli to be hiding in. The supersonic jet rolled its thunder through the night.

 

Through the open door of the chopper, Terrick and the pickup team saw and heard the jet pass not more than fifteen kilometers to their northeast. The pilot cursed. "I'm taking us closer to their damn base, until we can slip away, if that Hurricane is going to be running border patrol." The already tense atmosphere got heavier as the minutes slowly rolled by.

 

On the western outskirts of Pine Gap, the sentries at Lima post were more alert than usual, now that the word had gotten out, and after weeks of guard duty they knew all the usual sounds of the desert. Very faintly, a sound grew that was out of place. One of the two sentries at Lima caught his breath and listened. "Do you hear that?" "Hear what?" responded the other sentry.

The sound got just a little louder as the far-off helicopter crossed a valley leading to Pine Gap, and then they both heard the unmistakable rhythmic beating.

"Command, Sentry Post Lima! We have definite helicopter sounds"

"Lima, Command. What direction?"

"Southwest, I think he just crossed the Finke Gorge"

Trigger was off like a shot.

[Bomb Bloke]

David Brown wandered back towards his sector, holding the pistol by its barrel. The duct tape which allowed the weapon to fire made it inherently unsafe, but he wasn't prepared to remove it until he'd recorded the pressure points precisely.

 

He was considering drawing up some charts to show to the soldiers. Genega had rattled off a list of times he could fit in the extra training - he'd watched the two enlisted men wince at each entry as he'd scribbled it down - and then got back to directing the chaos that was the command center.

 

Now, dealing with the ammo cartridges would be simple enough, they simply slotted or slid into the weapons. He'd have to find the pressure points on the larger weapons before they could be used.

 

The only other piece of equipment that could be introduced in the field was that weird mind probe, but there was a maybe attached to that. He'd considered telling the Commander about it, but he knew a busy man when he saw one. Plus, he himself couldn't get it to work... Dana had managed to 'show' a few of the other techs and brains how to do it, but it always just made his thumbs itchy.

 

He had a suspicion they were playing a practical joke on him.

 

--------------------------------------

 

The insides of the Skyranger were, as usual, cramped. Although the HWP hadn't been loaded, the hap-hazard craft assignment didn't leave much room. Everyone present had already gone through the motions of checking their equipment was battle ready, as they knew the air ship would be the most likely to intercept the fugitive.

 

One of their own...

 

Usually conversations weren't common in the 'Ranger, unless the craft was returning. For some of them, it could be the last ride they ever took. In this case, they were after an easy target, but none of them were happy about it. Not everyone had officially met Terrick, who hadn't been more social then he'd needed to be, but he'd been at the base long enough to be recognised.

 

Jasper sat close to Fitzwilliams, his squad leader. He was uneasy, even compared to the other troopers in the craft. Fitz seemed to have gained an extra edge to his personality after he'd led his team into disaster, and was starting to rival Tolstovich in terms of strictness at training. Now the man sat there looking like a dormant volcano, at a glance calm and collected, but there was something there that made you do a double take. The man was simmering, and had seemed all to eager to get into the 'Ranger.

 

Oh, well. Combat probably wouldn't be a problem, as even if Terrick had been able to meet up with armed contacts, they'd have to have been a small group indeed to get anywhere near Pine Gap undetected. The man would give up due to sheer force of numbers.

 

He attempted a quick headcount, but soon gave it up. He couldn't see through the crowd. He could see Sandy, and everyone recognised Poison, even if they hadn't dared speak to her. Keller and Dujardin always seemed to end up in the same place, coincedence or not, and one of the asians was either Ki-tat or his twin.

 

Come to think of it, he had no idea as to who was in charge of the mob.

 

--------------------------------------

 

The young scientist yawned, his chair creaking as he leaned back on it. He looked at his watch, grimaced, and started sliding papers back into the folders on his desk. The sun would be up soon, and he didn't intend to be awake to see it. He sometimes felt that he was expected to stay awake 24/7 in order to meet his deadlines, but he knew it was mostly self enforced labour. Even so, Daniel Morlone still couldn't get his motion scanner design to work.

 

He'd figured out how it was to be done. The catch was making something that could be carried - something not only small, but robust. Only one small design had worked, but it had failed the moment he'd turned it up-side-down. No moving parts, that was the way, a few small gas chambers might do the job. Or a plasma one... Zager's wonder batteries might give him a few more options, but too many circuits made heat -

 

The door to his office creaked open, and Brown's head peered through the gap.

 

"Hey, Psawhn, did you see where I put that that spheare thing?"

 

"I think Photon was playing with it."

 

"No, the big blue one."

 

"Oh, the crystal ball?" Daniel yawned again. "Think I saw Dane playing with it again, telling fortunes or something."

 

The larger mans forehead wrinkled. Daniel shrugged, blinking away his urge to sleep.

 

"Dana, I mean. When she was done she put it back into the stores."

 

"Can't find it in there."

 

"Some other tech must have it, then."

 

David looked worried as he wandered through the stalls, glancing at various desks to find the elusive orb. It had occured to him that it should probably be locked away safely, because if it really could read minds, then there was going to be trouble.

 

--------------------------------------

 

The sun started to glimpse over the horizon, boosting visibility. The chopper pilot slammed the control stick, which was relatively safe, because the rotors were no longer spinning.

 

They'd touched down in an obscure dip on the edge of a vally, a location he'd noted on his map before he'd started the mission, not too close to the base but far enough away that he could slip away when the search intensity died down.

 

He hadn't been expecting to need such precautions, but things hadn't gone to plan. Terrick was supposed to have slipped out undetected, dissolving the need for such stealth. Terrick was also supposed to be a super soldier, a regular commando from what he'd heard.

 

What Terrick was not supposed to do was turn up an hour late, barely coherant. Now the man lay in the back of his craft on a stretcher. After he'd touched down, the two other men he'd been flying with had declared him unconcious, and started messing around with various medical sets. The way he figured it, it would be easier to just lodge a bullet in the guy's skull and leave it at that; no point in carrying dead weight. But apparently Terrick 'knew' stuff.

 

And so he'd been left to drag the camouflage sheet across the chopper on his own, no easy task. He'd just finished messing up the LZ (as having any debris blown clear was a dead give away), and now all they had to do was wait until the coast was clear. Or until they were captured. Whichever came first.

 

Worse yet, he'd forgotten to bring breakfast. Another beautiful day was beginning.

[The Veteran]

The night was beginning to turn into day again and Trigger felt like he'd been in the air forever. He always thought time seemed to go slower without food...

 

"Tactical Command this is Interceptor One, I have no visuals, scans or any other kind of contact with the target. What now?"

 

The dreariness and vague frustration in the pilots voice was echoed in the thoughts of every person hearing it back at base but the show must go on. Especially in such dire situations.

 

*Trigger, this is Genega, according to our sentries at Lima post you're shadowing the chopper to perfection... There's no way that thing can outrun you, just keep to it.*

 

"That's all well and good for you to say sir, you have a toilet next door..."

 

Possibly not the wisest comment to make to a garrison commander but Trigger was beyond comprehension of such things...

 

*I know you've been up there a long time but there's simply noone left here to relieve you. Gia's out in the other Hurricane, the Skyranger is chasing you and God only knows where the osprey is but even that's gone somewhere!*

 

"I know sir, this is what I signed up for after all... It just seems like a bit of a fruitless mission is all..."

 

*Well the chopper wasn't far ahead of you when we got its position, judging your speeds you should be within 15 miles of each other. If you close the gap and don't find him then we're plain out of luck, he could be anywhere then.*

 

"Sounds like a deadline to me, I'm crossing Finke Gorge now, its the first bit of scenery I've passed all day..."

 

Genega pondered for a second, *Finke Gorge? That's where the last position report was made and I apparently can't count. You should be literally miles away from their projected location...*

 

"I should? The low level radar isn't getting anything... And we know there's nothing higher than me or the base radar would have it..."

 

Trigger scanned the console before him hoping for a quick fix but he found none. The scanners were set up to look exactly what he wanted. Helicopter noise and movement below the Pine Gap radar...

 

"General? When did the boys at Lima hear this thing? It's just, I wonder if I'm looking in the wrong place..."

 

Genega was wondering that too but he couldn't bring himself to tell Trigger that. *It was only about ten minutes ago I think. They reported helicopter noises approaching from the southwest.*

 

"What happened to the noises?"

 

Genega was puzzled by this question, obviously they weren't still there... *They stopped...*

 

"Stopped? They didn't disappear, they stopped"

 

*Good God... Trigger, find them! I'm going to get onto the Skyranger right away. Out!*

 

Trigger suddenly regained what he'd lost of his consciousness and adrenaline kicked in again. They were here somewhere so why couldn't he find them?

 

He checked his readouts again... Of course! It was obvious now... He was scanning below the radar but he wa only scanning airspace below the radar.

 

He switched to scan for surface targets and suddenly one appeared. Not more than half a mile away...

[Snikers]

Keller ran her fingers down the length of her rifle. Though she had heard of the new laser weapons that had come out - though she knew the word laser just had to be a misnomer, probably from some hyperactive fellow like Ghost who was embracing the prospect of aliens just a bit too tightly - but wasn't all to interested in picking them up. She was used to this rifle. Whatever the new weapons would turn out to be, they would definitely take a whole new design and, probably, technique. She happened to be quite fond of the rifle in her hands right now and, to discard modesty, figured the rifles were quite fond of her - to judge by her shooting prowress. She wasn't built for close-quarters combat, but she was a hell of a shot with a longarm. If they threw some new design at her, though...

 

Whatever. No use worrying about it now. Keller nudged Green, sitting next to her. He looked over.

 

"Hey," asked Keller, "you know what time it is outside? I'm all messed up nowadays, I don't know if I've seen so much as a window since my last mission. Day or night?"

 

"Oh, day, definitely," said Green, then checked his watch. "Just fourteen minutes past noon, in fact."

 

"And we're landing in desert, right?"

 

"Depends on where in Australia we're going, I guess," replied Green, rubbing his hands toughtfully.

 

"They said we'd be close to the base, right?" asked Dujardin, sitting on the other side of Keller. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, possibly in expectation of warm weather.

 

"Yes, they did, now that I think of it. Desert then, definitely. It's going to be hot." Green rubbed at his stubble and his face returned to its original expression.

 

Keller chewed on her lower lip sourly. "Oooh-kaay..." she sighed, and donned her black goggles.

 

* * *

 

"HEY"

 

The shout was directed at a video camera, situated near the ceiling in a corner of the secure room. The room, guarded by two soldiers right outside the locked door, contained this camera, one bed, bathroom facilities, and a pacing, red-faced Bernard.

 

"Are you even listening to me?! I want out of this damned cell, you knuckle-dragging grunts! I am a diplomat! An ambassador! I have rights! My government will be looking for me, and by god, when they find out what you've done..."

 

Bernard hit the edge of his humble quarters and turned to make, unbeknownst to him, his one hundredth trip exactly from one wall to another. He tore his eyes away from the camera, fuming, before returning his gaze and cotinuing his rant.

 

"My country will not hesitate to extract me! They'll smash through your front doors with guns blazing! Do you understand?! You are going to be in big, big trouble if you do not get me out of here RIGHT NOW." He stared furiously at the camera, while it gazed back with its expressionless single glass eye. "Get - me - the - HELL - OUT - OF - HERE"

 

Bernard stood stock still, quivering with rage, and then furiously tore off his suit jacket. Storming toward the camera, he threw it up and covered the surveillance device. Stepping back, he admired his handiwork. At least the bastards aren't watching me now.

 

He has just finished that thought when the door opened and a large framed man stepped inside. Bernard swiveled and spotted him. Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke.

 

"Finally! What the hell took you so lon--" he started as he took towards the man, but the soldier's hand immediately dropped to a pistol on his belt. Bernard's eyes widened and he froze, then slowly took several steps backward.

 

The soldier stepped forward a pace and kept his eyes locked on Bernard, as a second soldier stepped inside and carefully removed the jacket from the camera. Taking the jacket with them, the soldiers exited the room and the door closed.

 

Bernard's spectacled gaze went from the closed door, to the camera, and back to the door before he started to shout. "PUS-SUCKING NEANDERTHAL MOTHER-F--"

 

* * *

 

"Ukk..." gargled Terrick, head rolling in the stretcher, eyelids fluttering. "Ucch-ker..."

 

"Can't you shut him up?" asked the pilot of the helicopter, kneading his hands. "Give him a shot of something to knock him out?"

 

"I won't do that," said one of the other men, the medical kit sitting on his lap. "He knows things. I want him conscious as soon as possible, and anyway - he's too badly hurt for me to give him a shot. It could kill him in this state."

 

"Wouldn't that be a shame," muttered the pilot darkly, peering out the cockpit window. The camoflague tarp covered the glass, but the bright light outside allowed shadows to be seen through the fabric.

 

At that moment, there was a roar of engines, and in a matter of seconds it had passed over their heads. The shadow of something airborne and close to the ground appeared through the fabric and sped off in front of them. As the pilot watched, the object slowed.

[Bomb Bloke]

"Hundred and ninteen.... Hundred and twenty.... Hundred and twenty-one... Hundre-"

 

"Will you stop that?"

 

Bob Jennings glared at Rubenstein, the demolitions expert. They'd been assigned as guards for the two prisoners. Normally, the security team would take care of it, but they were all rostered in other positions - no one had expected to be taking human prisoners, so the 'cells' were simply a couple of unused sleeping facs. Isaac sat in front of the video displays with his legs up, and Jennings was now going through the jacket they'd taken.

 

There had been some more screaming from the one calling himself a diplomat - the man seemed to have an unlimited supply of indignation. He'd eventually gone back to his pacing, which Isaac had taken to counting.

 

He turned a bored expression back at Jennings, and shrugged. Moving his gaze back to the monitors, his lips continued to move silently.

 

The mercenary had gone to sleep on his bed soon after he'd arrived in his cell.

 

Redshirt finished pulling cards out of pockets, and let the jacket fall beside him. He flipped open a wallet and started to read.

 

"Says here his name is Bernard Maple."

 

Isaac shrugged again, while the smaller man unfolded some papers. Eventually he found what he was looking for. Most of the terminology was gibberish to him, but the big red "confidential" mark on it was bound to mean something.

 

"Looks like they had some sort of meeting planned."

 

He shortly gave up, and pushed Bernards' stuff off the table onto his jacket. They'd already searched the merc, who hadn't even been wearing a dogtag. His lack of identification was made up for with an assortment of hidden knives, which now lay on the other side of Redshirt's table. His feet took the vacated position.

 

He could leave off handing the stuff in for quite some time. Most of the leaders were more concerned with the hunt for Terrick.

 

Both men yawned. On the screen, Bernard kicked the wall.

 

------------------------------------

 

TJ was starting to get frustrated... again. The radar had, with some accuracy, helped him pinpoint several large rocks. While it was good at finding large deviations in the terrain, it wasn't good at discribing them.

 

The one he was looking at now was mostly buried in dead branches, lodged in a dip of the terrain. The radar hadn't picked it up, but he'd spotted it during a trip to another blob of radar fuzz. The covering of mould looked a bit odd. It was probably due to the only half covered metalic fan, sticking out one end.

 

He grinned.

 

"Interceptor One to Command... I got a visual"

 

------------------------------------

 

Howitz nearly hit the ceiling as the alarm went off for the second time within twenty four hours. He'd been in the land cruser team, which had arrived back well before the Skyranger had, but even so he hadn't got as much sleep as he would have liked.

 

He blinked away the morning fuzz until he could see his watch. Afternoon fuzz, then. As the loudspeaker continued to blare (right outside his door), he rolled off the top bunk onto the ground in an attempt to wake up, resisted to urge to go back to sleep on the floor, and started to pull on his armor. The alarm stopped, and a voice requested squad 2 to make their way to the Osprey bay.

 

Why call an all hands alert and then...?

 

Oh, well. Back to sleep, then.

 

------------------------------------

 

Genega was smiling for the first time in a while. It was a grim smile, but nevertheless, he'd finally got some good news. The chopper was trapped - it couldn't take off with Munt in the air above it.

 

With a definite location, he could send out just a small strike team to capture whoever was manning it, and presumably Terrick. Bringing the chopper itself in would be a nuisance - They really needed a chopper of their own to haul craft like that, but for some reason the delivery agent always had an excuse prepared. It wasn't like he didn't have the hanger space for one.

 

No matter. It was the personal who mattered. Someone had managed to plant a spy in X-Com - Pickering had told him all about the occasional radio traffic going out of the base, along with everything else - and this was the first step towards finding out who.

[The Veteran]

Trigger was overflowing with adrenaline as he made another pass at the chopper hoping to see some of its former occupants. He passed over the vehicle low and fast, tearing the tarpaulin off most of the vehicle in the process.

 

"Base, this is Interceptor One. I'm going to immobilise the craft. These guys aren't getting away from me again. Confirm please..."

 

*Trigger this is General Genega. Just... Try not to kill anyone we need to question ok?*

 

TJ grinned, the Commander knew him far too well. Even now his finger hovered over the Avalanche controls. He could end it all right there, no Terrick, no laser, no chopper... It would be another nice tidy little coverup...

 

But he knew what had to be done, much as he longed for an explosion... With the flick of a switch, the HUD displayed a lock on the choppers main rotor, another switch engaged the Hurricane's cannon.

 

Trigger moved his finger to the suitably named 'kill' button just as he saw a character appear as if from nowhere.

 

Terrick moved away from the helicopter and produced a staff-like item which he drove into the ground before him.

 

TJ hesitated as his target grew ever closer and pulled the trigger at exactly the same moment as Terrick leapt back to cover.

 

The gun jammed, a mere click eminating from the depressed button. Console lights failed and interior illuminations were extinguised all in a flash. As Trigger listened to the engines behind him they began to detonate wildly out of sequence and then ceased to detonate completely...

 

The Hurricane was a dead weight and Trigger already knew what was happening. He punched madly at master switches while he heaved the joystick towards him. The nose lifted and the plane slowed rapidly, failing miserably to defy gravity. Still there was no power, the ship had been completely disabled by Terricks Electro-magnetic pulse...

 

As the Hurricane slowed to a virtual stop, Trigger pushed the stick away from him again leaving the craft's remaining momentum to carry it to it's inevitable end. Too late to eject, the doomed pilot simply braced himself as best he could. Gia had survived a similar incident, and that was only a prototype... He'd be ok, wouldn't he?...

 

 

 

Back on base, interest in the chase was slowly being lost by everyone involved. Tactical Command had no idea of the latest developments above Australia's deserts and most of the base was desperately attempting to regain lost sleep.

 

Rick was a special case, he'd been contacted by the doctor who had taken his last 'pshyche evaluation' or whatever it was. Turns out the boffins had something in the laboratory that he thought Rick should have a look at.

 

The scientists being completely uninterrupted by the military goings on, work continued as normal. And Rick being as exhausted as he was, he figured now would be a good time to do something nice and easy. He strolled into the labs and was immediately met by Dana's glare.

 

Not one to tolerate soldiers incursions into scientific matters lightly, Dana's guard was quick to go up. "Can I help you?" she asked Rick sharply.

 

"I was sent down hereby one of the doctors to take a look at some sort of sphere?" replied Rick uncertainly. The woman seemed rather agitated and he didn't want to make an enemy of a complete stranger.

 

"I'm sorry, you can't come in here. It's strictly research and development personnel..."

 

As she spoke Daniel appeared beside her wielding some strangly distorted piece of... something stragly distorted. "What's up Dana?" he said calmly.

 

"This grunt wants to come and play with our artefacts. He was sent by one of the doctors."

 

Now, Rick wasn't the best judge of character but he got the feeling this person didn't like him much...

 

Dana and Daniel spoke for a while, about him Rick figured, then Dana left and Daniel approached him.

 

"Hi there, sorry about that. She's been working hard lately and we've recently taken a few items that, quite frankly baffle us! What was it you were here to look at?"

 

"I honestly don't know," replied Rick. "I was just told to come and see a sphere?"

 

Daniel raised an eyebrow inquisitively but could think of very few responses that would get him anywhere fast. He knew of Terrick and the laser pistol, but he also knew Rick so the last thing on his mind was a repeat performance.

 

He turned into the lab and gestured for Rick to follow him. He did so, walking past a rather irate and sulking Dana. He kept his distance... When Daniel stopped he was standing next to the sphere. Rick stared at it, the surface glimmered as though it were alive... A hundred hues of silver and blued danced together, occasionally resembling pictures and words.

 

"What is it?" said Daniel percieving Rick's amazement.

 

"It's, incredible..." he stammered.

 

Daniel stared at the sphere, motionless and dull. It was, a sphere... Wasn't it?

 

"What exactly can you see?..." he asked Rick inquisitively.

 

"What can I see? It's, like 3D-TV or something... You ever read The Illustrated Man? It's kind of like that..."

 

Much as Daniel liked to read he hadn't a clue what Rick was talking about. But his scientific mind had got the better of him now. He could ask questions later, but now he was way too excited for that...

 

"Pick it up," he told Rick.

 

"What? Do you even know what it is? It could burn my hands off or something"

 

"It won't, people have touched it before, it gave them headaches but nothing more."

 

Headaches, thought Rick. He was beginning to place this with the Doctors appointment. He was checking out Rick's head, seemed to think he was something a bit special... But wasn't this the sort of stuff he was apparently immune too? It was all way too confusing for a soldiers mind but Rick was intrigued too and he found himself reaching for it despite his doubts.

 

His fingers came within an inch of the sphere's surface, the pictures became clearer where his hand was closer to them... He brushed it with his fingertips, and felt nothing... Reaching with both hands now he placed one either side, and grasped the sphere, lifting it from the worktop.

 

Daniel stared at Rick, Rick stared into the sphere. He could almost hear Dana's frustration in the quiet that followed. Rick was motionless, unblinking, unmoving...

 

The pictures were racing over the spheres surface now, but they were becoming something real. He could see something, people... There was smoke, and sand... There was Trigger, and Terrick...

 

Daniel continued to watch as Rick began to breathe heavily, still motionless. As he watched, his temples began to ache. He saw Dana at her desk rubbing her lobes.

 

Rick could see clearly now, as if watching events first hand... Trigger was being supported by two other men, being held on his knees and in clear pain... There was another man in front of him in a similarly poor state of health. It was Terrick, and he had the pistol...

 

Terrick was virtually lying down but he was conscious and he was smirking. He was speaking but Rick didn't know what he was saying. He saw Terrick arm the weapon he held... He saw him point it at a barely conscious Trigger... Then all he saw was a flash.

 

Dana and Daniel winced in pain and Rick wailed in agony as he tore his hands away from the sphere. Clutching his temples, Daniel watched the sphere fall as if in slow motion. Rick's legs failed beneath his weight and he blacked out instantly.

 

Rick fell to the floor with a heavy thud and the sphere fell beside him, shattering like a fish bowl...

 

Daniel fell to his knees and stared and the broken artefact and Dana stared at him in bewiderment. Both still clutching their throbbing heads the two scientists tried to make sense of what had just happened, but neither could...

 

All in all, the day was not going well for anyone.

[Bomb Bloke]

As the sphere had hit the ground, the shock wave had started. The first mind it had hit was Ricks, who was in no state to feel it; the psionic waves changed state as it spread out, hitting Daniel at full force and continuing out past Dana and on throughout the base...

 

The effects were random. As the waves spread, they weaved in and out of focus, perhaps hitting a receptive mind with little force, or a closed one with the full brunt.

 

Few minds felt it. Only those who had seen the spheare shatter knew what it was.

 

Rick quickly awoke, his head feeling like it had been used as a spring board. What the...?

 

He realised he was lying on something, and muzzily raised himself up on his arms. He stared at the shards of shattered glass - was it glass? - and the crushed wires lying beneath him. Stains of an unknown liquid dripped off his chest, mixing back into the mess he had been lying on.

 

Whoops.

 

He looked up, eyes feeling like they were rolling in sockets of steel wool, and saw the two white coats staring under him at the ex-spheare. A third figure appeared at the door.

 

"Hey," said David Brown. "Don't suppose you've seen that big ball thing, Dana?"

 

Her face turned to look at him, but her gaze remained on the remnants on the floor. Realisation fell as Rick rose.

 

"What happened?" he said, at the same time as David. Daniel leant against the wall as Dana started her tirade, ignoring the engineer to shout at the soldier.

 

"You're asking ME what happened?! You're the one who dropped the thing! Do you have any idea how much that was worth!? I don't! I not even sure what the wretched thing was! And now we've got one less to experiment on, you hulking idi-"

 

She was interupted as he barged out of the room, his memory having returned. He left a trail of purple slime in his wake, having stomped right in the middle of the stricken artifact in his haste to get moving. Dana continued spluttering while the other two stared on in bewilderment.

 

"Well, I guess we know how to open them now", murmered Daniel, half under his breath.

 

------------------------------------

 

The final crew member was boarding the Osprey by the time Rick arrived in the shuttle bay. He half climbed, half jumped onto the edge of the ramp, and moved towards the nearest seat.

 

"Hey, I don't think you're in our squad..."

 

He turned to see Wexford sitting next to him. "Is that what you think? Well, I think I'm a squad leader who's coming anyway. That's what I think."

 

He went back to strapping his armor on. There was no time to go back and ask for permission to hitch a ride - the ramp was already rising - and he wasn't sure anyone was going to believe him if he tried to explain -

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

His head jerked up again, but he glare faded. This time one of his counterparts was speaking to him, the leader of the second squad, Hero Escalante.

 

"Sorry, Crispy, but I gotta come. I heard TJ was shot down out there."

 

It was a lie, but it was close enough. Hero merely shrugged and went back to checking his own equipment. It was no skin off his nose if he had an extra squad member.

 

The Osprey launched.

 

--------------------------------------

 

"Why don't we just kill him?"

 

Terrick turned to grunt beside him, propping himself up on an elbow. "Stupid question. Hostages are more useful alive."

 

He was nearly in a good mood. His head swam with the various drugs swimming around his system, but his body was no longer stressing his pain at him so that was ok. Lying down didn't hurt either, and under the sun's warmth he could nearly forget that he nearly had a hole right through him. At the very least he was thinking straight again.

 

Better yet, the laser gun still worked. He was no expert on the device - heck, it had barely been invented before he'd taken it - but he was fairly sure water would have rendered the device useless. He'd fired the thing at the jet pilot more out of curiosity then anything. By the time he'd come to, his head had cleared enough for him to realise that blowing his cover and escaping would do him no good if he had nothing to show for it, and so he'd fired a test shot - if only so he could confirm his despair. Perhaps all the important components were shielded? He was the only one surprised when the thing had cut right through the trunk of a small tree, despite the massive amount of flaring coming from the barrel.

 

Except perhaps for Trigger, who'd been expecting the beam to take his head off.

 

It'd passed right over his shoulder, leaving nothing but the sound of barbecue fading in his ear. He was currently tied up and hanging off a handy tree branch, glaring at anyone's eye that he could catch.

 

The chopper pilot was wandering around the Hurricane. The thing hadn't so much crashed as fallen, taking out some of the scarce greenary and burying its nose in the sandy dirt. It was probably worth more then Terrick and his laser gun put together... He wandered over to the solider group.

 

"I reckon that thing'd still fly."

 

"You reckon you could pilot it?"

 

"Maybe. It's not a conventional jet. But I don't think we're gonna make it very far if we take the chopper. They know where we are now."

 

Terrick stared at the craft. "How many seats?"

 

"Two."

 

Terrick paused, but came to the quick conclusion that he was in no state to 'convince' his two guards that they were to stay behind. "No good. We'll need to take the chopper."

 

The pilot shrugged, moved to start ripping off the netting with the help of the other two men, and then froze. A huge drop ship had just appeared a couple of hundred meters away, on the edge of the hill.

[Zager]

"Of course" Dr Zager shouted, bursting out of his office, less than a moment after the artifact had broken. "It makes so much sense now"

 

He strode over to Daniel and shook his hand. "Thank you. Whatever wave that was released from that artifact has suddenly made everything clear to me. We now have the potential to fully unlock our minds. You have just helped humanity prepare for its next step in our evolution as a species."

 

"What are you talking about," Daniel asked, a little discomfited. A cheerful Zager was something nobody on the base had ever seen before.

 

"The human brain is not just a computer. I now understand that it has the potential to include a modem as well" Zager explained, grinning widely.

 

He slumped down in a chair suddenly frowning. "This explains so much, but we have so little to prepare with. We have to learn more. Bring me the biopsy and genetic reports of all the dead aliens we've acquired so far. I have to find the link."

[JellyfishGreen]

Squad Two leaped from the Skyranger as its engine ducts flared for landing. Within seconds the squad was moving through the low scrub and rock outcrops towards the helicopter.

 

The one guard at the helicopter was hiding behind the tree where Trigger was tied up. He started firing bursts from his AK47 at the figures advancing on his position. One of the shots hit Kilam, who dropped, but then managed to wave from his prone position indicating he was OK - the ceramic insert in his Kevlar vest had saved him.

 

Green had dropped to a kneeling position as soon as he saw the muzzle flash. He caught the mercenary in his sights and dropped him with a single shot from the G36. Grim-faced, he waved the scouts forward.

 

Their opposition was down to Terrick, the pilot, and the remaining guard, all three of whom were watching nervously from behind the nose of the downed Hurricane.

 

*****

 

"Zager's obviously happy," said Dana to Daniel, "but now *our* research is so much purple soup. My best guess says it's some kind of remote viewer or mind reader, but I don't think we'll get anywhere until we get another one, now." They wandered into the second workshop where Dave Brown had been photographing and documenting his plasma weapon test setup. "At least Dave's having more luck, eh Dave?"

The big, spiky-haired engineer stretched, digital camera in one farflung hand, and said, "Yeah, I duct-taped a couple of weapons for the soldiers to test, including one of those purple-ball-throwers..." He waved at an empty bench, then did a double-take. "Where'd it go?" Purple footprints led away.

 

*****

 

Squad Two closed in from three sides. Terrick leveled the laser pistol over the Hurricane's nosecone. The remaining guard didn't know whether to cover the left or right flank with his AK47. The pilot, eyes darting, suddenly threw his free arm around Terrick's neck and pressed his SMG to Terrick's temple. "Any closer and I'll shoot this guy! Don't move" The squad stopped in surprise, confused, but none more so than Terrick.

But Terrick was the guy who we were chasing in the first place - thought Hiro.

From behind Hiro, Rick fired the stunball at the feet of the three men, enveloping them in a cloud of purple paralysis agent and dropping all three at once as if their strings had been cut. "I never was much good at negotiations."

 

They untied Trigger, who sagged against Rick in the wash of fatigue and relief. "Nice of you to drop by, mate. You know, I really thought I was done for there." Rick grimaced. "Believe me, I know."

 

*****

 

"The laser pistol is secure."

Pickering blinked at the unexpected statement from Genega. His gaze wandered over the control panel of his secure satellite phone while Genega filled him in. Apparently Terrick had also been carrying stolen research data on all their projects. A cold draft gusted through the open doors of the Osprey, which had only landed in Washington minutes ago.

"Right," he finally answered. "I'll interrogate Terrick and the other prisoners when I get back, but whatever Tim can get out of them, forward the intel to Valerie. I'll get her settled in an office here so she can start coordinating info on our fugitives."

"What about the Potomac UFO?"

"That's gone. The aliens sent in their own cleanup crew and turned it into scrap metal. There was some kind of cloaking field, too - the best picture anyone got is still as blurry as hell, and anything using magnetic or electronic storage was wiped."

Genega grunted, acknowledging the loss of crucial war materiel. "I guess that makes your life easier, anyway."

"Yes, sir. I'll do the site sweep here while we still have daylight, then that should release Squad Three to go home. Then we'll get a night's sleep and set Deacon and Jasper up in the morning. Then, I don't know, I have some XINV agents in Britain I need to talk to, so I might pop back home for a day or two." He looked out of the Osprey at his two agents, still uncramping from the long flight as they talked to the site security team who were equally bored of standing around in the snow.

"Sounds good to me," said Genega. "Let Gia know she's clear to RTB."

Pickering leaned out of the Osprey and looked across the snowy field to where Gia was waiting by her plane. He waved to catch her attention and gave her the thumbs up.

 

Gia saluted back, swung her arms and got as much circulation as she could into her cold stiff muscles before settling into the cockpit. (Heated, thank heaven for small mercies.) She couldn't believe she had missed the second - no, third - UFO, but she supposed they were all still learning. That reminded her of her "training flight" that had ended in a crash. She put the thought out of her mind and hoped Trigger hadn't gotten into any trouble while she was away. The pre-flight checks were over in minutes, so she tucked her hair into the flight helmet, lifted herself on her VTOL wings and flew home.

 

*****

 

The newly minted Sergeant Rick addressed his troops the next morning, still reeling from the promotion when he had fully been expecting to report for more medical tests.

"Good news mostly today, chaps. We've the first fittings of the personal armor this week, there's been a breakthrough in the plasma weapons research, and a few more laser weapons should be available for missions this week as well. Two people from each squad are to make themselves available for laser rifle training, and two more for plasma weapon training."

"We've a couple of new recruits, Duc Van Vinh, Vladimir Uli...Ulyinov, and Jason Bass. Someone make sure they see a real alien before we take them on a mission."

"Also in today's news, Zager wants Sectoids alive, and we've a new environmentally-sealed brig to keep them in, so we're issuing a stun launcher to each squad. Should be a damn sight handier than the shock-sticks."

"We've limited ammo for the stun launcher so we can only issue a few rounds with each. On that note, capturing more stun ammunition from the aliens has also been given a high priority."

Warlord grinned. He thought Rick was doing a good job. And he personally couldn't wait to get his hands on one of the plasma weapons - give those Sectoids a taste of their own medicine!

 

A day later, a very strange report came in from Buenos Aires. Just as the story broke on the international news wires about the military taking control of part of the city in an unexpected coup, the real story came in from XINV. A "terror ship" had discharged its cargo into the city and the military were attempting to contain the spread. "But these aren't the same kind of aliens. We have reports of horned demons flying through the air, and huge beasts swallowing people whole. This is a Catholic country, and they're convinced it's the end of the world"

[The Veteran]

Unlike his aircraft, Trigger had by now been recovered to Pine Gap. He was holed up in sickbay and feeling very sorry for himself. If the crash hadn't been enough for him to go through, Terrick and his minions weren't the most gentle of creatures either...

 

As he laid there now, everything ached and he was convinced that several of those things were about ready to fall off. The only saving grace of the day had just walked through the door and on seeing Gia Trigger had the strangest sense of dejavu...

 

Gia had only just got back to base herself and of course the hangar crew had told her straight away what had happened. She'd rushed to the sick bay to find a large pile of mess waiting patiently for her.

 

Trigger half groaned, half exclaimed in pain but didn't actually manage to say anything while Gia squeezed the remaining life out of his limp body.

 

"What happened to you, I've only just heard" said Gia not letting go, or realising how much pain she was putting Trigger in.

 

"If you just heard... Do you really need me to tell you what happened?"

 

The pilot sounded so exhausted it just made Gia want to squeeze him tighter, for some unknown and slightly sadistic reason...

 

"Oh my God, I couldn't believe it. I never thought I'd see the day when you went down," said Gia releasing Trigger from her kung fu death grip.

 

"Why not? It happened to you in your first week here! Man wasn't meant to fly, every so often God reminds us of that"

 

Trigger smiled as much as he could and Gia smiled back. "I guess we're even now huh?"

 

"Well I guess we are but... Dammit." Trigger's smile disappeared and he frowned with painful ease.

 

"What's wrong?" asked Gia.

 

"Well you've had one, I've had one..."

 

"And we've both been fine, that's good isn't it?"

 

"Well yeah but..."

 

Trigger looked up at Gia and shook his head.

 

"Davies," she said laughing at the pilots competitive streak. "You have to give that guy a break hun... I mean we both know you're better than he is. That's why he keeps getting sent out with the Osprey and Skyranger and we always get the Hurricane...s." She wasn't too sure whether there was still need for the plural.

 

Trigger pulled a face and looked away.

 

"Oh come here you big baby" said Gia, advancing on the downed pilot once more. Trigger just sighed and braced his aching bones.

[storm turmoil]

Instructing the troopers in using the new toys was a damn site easier than David had expected. Of course, it helped that they wanted to learn. Competition for the new gear had been fierce, and eventually, the officers had had to take charge.

 

Rank had it's priveleges, of course, and the Squad leaders had call on what gear they took - within reason.

 

Squad one was being rushed through the basics, and had taken it up pretty fast, since they'd already used the weapons or at least seen them used- Rick had doubled up as instructor for the stun launchers and Lasers. The speed was important since Buenos Aires was crying panic, and Genega wanted the team ready to go as soon as possible - but not without maximum firepower, given the last disastrous terror raid intervention.

 

" Right, Plasma weapon safety tips. Don't load it until you're ready to engage, and unload the moment it isn't needed. With the grip safety fudged to get these things to work, they'll go off at the slightest provocation, so don't clip 'em up till you're under fire or out of the 'Ranger" David instructed of the Plasma weapon handlers.

 

There were two types so far, one a fairly conventionally shaped pistol, the other a more esoterically shaped rifle. The pistol was easy enough, but the rifle was somewhat awkward for the human hand to grip, particularly when doing it wrong would put flesh up against the heat sink radiators. As a precaustion, all plasma weapon gunners had been issued with the same asbestos glove that old M60 machine gunners used to use to prevent burns when changing overheating barrels.

 

 

" Ok. Clip. slot. This way round, orange crystals at the top, Slam it home. Aim. Fire." David loaded, aimed, and fired a single shot from the plasma pistol he held, before slipping the clip out with his other hand. Unlike on a human pistol, the magazine catch was at the front of the grip. Which wasn't a problem for sectoids with their gangly fingers, but awkward for a human trooper.

 

" Now, when the crystals at the top of the clip are glowing, the clip still has charge. Once the glow goes out, the charge is out. A pistol clip seems to hold anything up to 15 shots. So far A rifle clip will hold up to 20 shots. Unfortunately, some of these clips are part used, and we haven't been able to open them up yet, so the only guide is whether the crystals are glowing. Just watch out for dry firing." David slotted a clearly discharged clip, the crystals gloomy and dull. he pulled the trigger, and the pistol wheezed feebly.

 

Warlord followed suit, drilling a neat bullseye with his pistol, before unloading it, and replacing it and the clip in the belt rig they'd run up for them.

 

" Nice to be able to return to sender" Warlord growled.

 

He hefted the plasma Rifle. To get enough troops trained on the new weapons, the weapons were in matched sets- Plasma Gunners got a plasma rifle and plasma pistol, Laser troops took a Laser rifle and Laser pistol. Since the weapons needed drastically different skills to operate, it had been decided that it was best to limit their use this way till all the troops had a better grasp of their use. Unfortunately, while the laser troops could blast away at the range for practise, the plasma gunners could only squeeze off a couple of shot's because of the limited ammo situation, and thus plasma clips had been added to the shopping list of retrievable items.

 

David glanced over to where the stun grunts were practicing with sponge balls. The launchers used a gravitic charge to launch their stun bombs- or anything else vaguely spherical dropped in the feed hopper, he'd discovered, and also incorporated the detonation mechanism- when the bomb was fired, a self replicating bio-organic acid was released onto the casing, the concentration determined by some kind of onboard computer to allow the stun bomb to be weakened just enough to crack open at the desired point of impact. It explained why David had found no sign of a fuse or detonater on the stun bombs- the launcher handled it. All the Stun grunts also carried one of the unpopular but necessary shock batons as well- so that anything that went down stayed down, as well as a sidearm.

 

For Buenos Aires, these new weapons were going into action alongside all manner of conventional- and not-so-conventional- human weapons that the squad had requested. Following the last terror missions, someone had asked for- and got- both an anti tank missile launcher for dealing with discs, and a flamethrower and incendiary Autocannon and 40mm grenade ammo for close quarter building clearance. grenades and demolition packs were also on the list, and someone had made the case for claymore mines, only for it to be refused because of the civilians that could be present.

 

After last time, no one was looking forward to another intervention. They were all aiming to carry as much as they could in terms of weapons and armour.

[Alitorious]

"Just a second" yelled Patricia Keynes as she untangled herself from the mess of equipment that was her work station. To say she was in a bad mood was an understatement. Most of the video was wiped blank, except for the end - which looked like a blurry film of a street lamp.

The door bell rang again.

"I said just a minute! Just hold on for Pete's sake! God"

She yanked her apartment door open to find a timid-looking man in a trench coat and fedora. The man constantly glanced at the hallways as he talked. He seemed startled by Patricia's appearance. Her hair was a mess, and there were sags under teary eyes.

"Are-are you Patricia K-keynes?"

She narrowed her eyes and nodded, now cool and alert now that her "weirdo" instincts have kicked in.

"I heard you got some pictures of a real UFO. The one that the military crashed into the river last night."

Patricia frowned. She didn't like where this was heading.

"Oh, name's J-Jack. McCormick," said Paul Jasper, glancing up and down the hallway paranoidedly again. "I know the truth."

Patricia started to close the door.

"No! Wait! P-please? I just want to see what you have. That's all. I know it's good. Please? I know what you have is r-real.

Although her instincts were on full alert, that last sentence the man said was exactly what she wanted to hear. She wanted to know that she wasn't crazy. She needed to know that what she saw last night actually happened.

Her purse was beside the door. Without taking her eyes off the man, she reached over and put it on, plunging her hand inside and clutching the pepper spray. She slowly opened the door and motioned the man in. Yet again, he looked down the hallway before slipping surreptitiously inside. She closed the door behind him and led him to the VCR.

"It isn't much," she said as she pressed the rewind button for a few seconds. The only good bit was at the end. She pressed play.

It was fuzzy, washed out, and greyed out. For a few seconds, one could see a faint spot of light. Then the tape went to snow again before it came back, clear and fully focused, on a streetlight. Patricia rewound and paused on the faint spot of light.

"Wow. I mean, w-wow," said so-called 'Jack.' "That's real, right there. 'You sent this in, yet?"

Patricia shook her head, looking at this guy incredulously.

"You should. I have some pictures, myself. I took them m-myself. That's how I-I know they're real, right?" From inside his trench coat he produced a few black-and-white photographs. Most of them were just fuzzy white spots on black background. One looked suspiciously like a photo of car headlights. It actually was.

"But what you have is loads better" Jack pressed eject on the VCR without warning and grabbed the tape, hinting at running away with it.

"Do you have any copies?"

Patricia snatched the out of his hands, which probably meant no copies of the tape itself. She glanced at her computer screen. 'Jack' could see the image going through some photo editing process. The program was labelled "untitled," which meant she hadn't saved it to hard disk.

"Can I please have it?"

Patricia stepped away, clutching the tape to herself. She was not going to give up her last hope so easily. Her other hand gripped the pepper spray more tightly.

"Then you should send it in. I'm sure any paper will take it in. E-especially the National Inquirer--"

Patricia screamed and threw the tape at him. As desperate as she was, she wasn't that desperate so as to submit to that trash-infested steaming pile of pulp they called a news paper. If she sent to them her credibility as a reporter would vanish completely. The very suggestion was an insult.

Jasper dropped the photos and grabbed the tape, then started running to the door as soon as he was able. He ducked in time to miss the next flying object the crazy lady found - her computer mouse.

As soon as he was out the door, Jasper mumbled into the microphone planted on him. "Cut the power. She never saved the thing to hard disk." Only a few seconds later, all the lights in the apartment complex went out.

Behind him, Paul Jasper heard Patricia scream again.

He was no expert, but Jasper suspected that if this woman never heard the words "alien," "UFO," or "saucer" again, it would be too soon.

 

-------------

 

"Hey, Dane, could you check this out for a bit?" Dana looked over to see Daniel clutching yet another blue sphere, now dubbed "Mind Probes" after everything they've seen them do. He was wearing a pair of very thick gloves, and because of that he didn't feel any headache. Dana seemed a bit calmer now.

"Where did you get that?" she snapped. Calm was relative.

"There's been three recoveries, so far. This is the last one."

"Just don't drop it," she said icily.

"Actually, that's just what I'm going to do. Watch."

Dana gave the most interesting look of mixed shock and horror as she watched Daniel deliberately remove his hands and allow the last mind probe to fall. She stared as the thing, worth who-knows-what and was the last one on base, accelerated towards the floor in slow motion.

It bounced.

Daniel barely caught it as it rose back to the exact height he let it go at. He gave her a few seconds for it to sink in.

"I was lifting it off from a table with these gloves when it slipped from my hands. I don't think it would have broken - it only fell a little bit onto the table - but I was surprised when it bounced the few centimetres back up to my hands. Then I remember that we couldn't get that other one open before that other soldier dropped it. Remember, we just couldn't get through the casing? That's how I knew it would survive a bounce to the floor. But watch this."

Daniel moved over to the nearest clear counter, then dropped it merely a palm's width to the counter. As before, it bounced to the exact height it was before.

"Now, I do wish we knew where the first one was, 'would make these tests a bit less risky. Look what happens when I take the gloves off." Daniel did so, and held the sphere just above the counter again, doing his best to ignore the headache that comes with these things. He dropped it again. This time, however, the sphere didn't bounce at all. It just started rolling, instead, but Daniel picked it up before it had any danger of falling off the counter. He turned back to Dana, who seemed to be avoiding his eyes now for some reason.

"But it seems to have different properties... when people hold it or are near to it... Just like Zager... said... it has something to do... something with mental... something." Daniel tried to ignore flashes of images of Dana carrying him back to her room that were materializing in his head. The two long ago agreed that they didn't think of each other that way, so why was he thinking like this right now?

Wait a second... Dana wasn't carrying him in these visions... Daniel looked down at the mind probe in his hands.

"It was you who took that first one" Daniel exclaimed. Dana shifted guiltily, looking like a little girl caught in her mom's make-up supplies.

"I was going to bring it back..."

 

-----------------

 

Donald Ramson tried his best not to look directly at the woman glaring at him from across the desk. On either side of her were two men who seemed to be there for the sole purpose of intimidating him. At least in the case of the guy on the left with the scarred face, it worked. He quickly tore his gaze away from him and back to the woman.

The girl was asking him questions about the UFO, mainly. Ramson answered truthfully, considering there was no point denying what happened.

It felt rather eerie to Ramson, having his wing mate shot down by god damn aliens. Aliens! It felt like a dream, but some rational part of him knew it had to be true. There was no explaining away the empty bunk that belonged to Ryan.

 

Standing behind Valerie, John Pickering carefully studied the man in front of him. It hadn't been too hard to find out who was in the air when the Terror Ship came. After figuring out what had happened, Genega decided that the man would be a valuable asset to have, but it would ultimately be up to Pickering's discretion whether or not to pick him up. So far, Pickering liked what he saw. Ramson had a good head and good instincts, proven by how he evaded the alien weapons. He looked at his watch, the predetermined signal for "keep him."

"Well, Mr. Ramson. I've made my decision," said Valerie Deacon. They still had to keep up the pretence that she was the head honcho here. "We're not from the CIA, as we first said. We're from X-INV, the extraterrestrial investigations unit, which is a part of X-COM, the extraterrestrial combat unit, which, in turn, is a United Nations program. We have been investigating the recent increase in alien activity, yet only recently changed our charter to include the combative aspect. Part of this aspect includes aerial interception of the alien intruders.

"That is where you come in. You're a top pilot, and already have experience against these aliens. In short, we would like you to come on board."

Pickering could see the man mull it over in his head. He knew what the man would decide. The chance to avenge his wing mate would be too much for this man.

"Yeah," Ramson nodded. "I'm in."

Valerie smiled. "Good." The two stood up and shook hands. Outside waiting for you is a man called Davies. We'll sort out the details with your commanding officer.

 

------------

 

"Twenty seven" Dana called out triumphantly. Daniel nodded glumly. Yet another score for Dana - seven versus his three.

"I think that's enough," Zager said, writing something more down on his clipboard. "You can give it a rest for now." Synchronised, Daniel and Dana both put down their mind probes and started massaging their sore temples. Under the supervision of Dr. Zager, the two were playing a little 'mind game.' Each one would try to think of a number whilst simultaneously trying to pry the other person's number out from their heads. Whoever first shouted out the number the other person was thinking.

"Hey, don't feel too bad, Dan. Women are just better at these kinds of things," Dana smiled smugly. It was gratifying to see Dana actually happy for once - a rare sight after the new year.

Daniel was just about to voice a complaint when Zager interrupted.

"Do keep in mind, Ms. Farber, that you have had much more experience with the mind probes than Daniel here, and you two have been close friends for quite a long time."

"Well, maybe I should try against you, Pat," Dana smirked, using a shortened form of his first name to try to get under his skin.

"Absolutely not. I'm the observer. It's out of the question." Dana was sure he just didn't want to touch the things. Maybe she should find out if that was true, actually...

"Hey, hands off, Dane" Daniel warned her. Even without using one of those things he knew what she was thinking. She gave him back a playful look, but there was something in it that Daniel didn't recognize.

It worried him a little.

[storm turmoil]

David Brown had just doled out the last of the meagre ration of Plasma Clips to the Buenos Aires squads two Plasma Gunners. The two Laser gunners had retrieved their fully charged Rifles and Pistols and were ready to board the 'Ranger.

 

Rockets for the 84mm Anti-tank launcher were already on board, and a trooper dashed past with a trolley loaded with orange labeled incendiary ammo for Autocannon and 40mm heavy launcher.

 

There was an acrid smell in the Hangar as the requested Flamethrower was adjusted for pressure. it was hardly a subtle weapon, but for clearing buildings, it would do the trick just fine. Rifles were slung, sidearms holstered.

 

This Time, X-com wasn't going in blind. They knew what to expect, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

 

For the Aliens, that is.

 

Rick stepped out into the hangar, feeling somewhat self concious in his new suit of Personal armour. He hadn't wanted to take it, but he'd been bullied into it. He'd rather have given the armour to one of the squaddies, but command were adamant that as squad sergeant, he got the first-and so far only, barring the badly scarred prototype- suit. He felt a little ridiculous in the bright blue plates.

 

 

" OK. listen up. Unlike the last mission, this time we have clearly hostile targets. There's some confusion about exactly what these critters are, but make no mistake, they are definately not of this Earth. But they definately are not welcome here, be they Aliens or Devils, they're going to regret getting X-com mad at them, Am I right?" Rick asked of the bolstered 'brick' of troopers.

 

" Damn right" Warlord Growled.

 

" Now mount up, and lets go show these 'devils' that Hell is a picnic compared to our kind of playtime" Rick ordered. he felt unusally amped. At the moment everything seemed to be going right. They had new weapons, they had new armour, and they knew, now, what they were getting into. They were prepared so much better than last time.

[The Veteran]

Buenos Aires was less than an hour away and Frank Cheeseman was feeling much more relaxed than probably he should have been... It was the first time that he'd actually flown one of the squads out to a hostile encounter... For the last two UFOs and the disastrous terror mission Doc had been on shift or Cheese had been away on other business. Out in the Osprey combing fields, out with Grizzly picking up planes...

 

To be fair to Cheese though, he'd only been back on base a few hours this time before flying out again to this UFO. The flight deck wanted Doc to go again but Cheese managed to finally wangle the exhausted pilot a well earned timeout!

 

Now as they got closer, he was beginning to wonder what it would actually be like out ther... Unlike the interceptor pilots, Doc and Cheese never flew together and were always on opposing shifts. On the rare occasions they were both awake together it was because they were both busy flying to or from some farflung corner of the world!

 

This time while Cheese and Grizzly had been away picking up a new plane and a new pilot, they'd both missed a lot! In fact Cheese had been going over exactly how much can happen in such a short time since the ground crew had brought him down, filled him in and sent him back out again.

 

He chuckled to himself. It was kind of ironic really he thought. It probably wasn't but Cheese thought it was... He'd taken Grizzly to pick up a new Hurricane Interceptor and another interceptor pilot. Now it was strange how the base always seemed to have one more pilot than they did planes but what he found more amusing was that if not for Trigger's incident with Terrick then they would also have had one more aircraft than they did hangars... He couldn't help but think someone was either planning things very badly, or eerily well!

 

In the rear of the craft, the soldiers weren't thinking about exactly the same things as Cheese but some things never change...

 

"Got any nines?" said Warlord nonchalantly.

 

"Go fish..."

 

Rick itched his neck where the new armour irritated his skin and tried to shrug some of the plates into more comfortable positions. He still wasn't mad keen on the idea of being painted blue and parading through the streets of an alien filled town but at least R&D were starting to get the weapons right again. That said, Rick had already swapped his once...

 

The kit on board this time was much more diverse than it had been last time Squad 1 had flown out. Then it had been mostly rifles, then when they met the 'diplomats' they'd been given a few lasers.

 

This time everyone felt safer behind their new arsenal... The squad now had two laser pistols, one laser rifle, a heavy cannon and an autocannon, two rifles, a sidearm for the medic, a flamethrower by special request and a newly bodged plasma pistol that surprise surprise had been given to Rick...

 

That had been his first trade. He'd seen how Ki-tat's eyes lit up when he saw the plasma pistol in the weapons demonstration. He'd never said as much but Ki-tat was quite the whizz when it came to 'cutting-edge'. And it didn't get much sharper than plasma right now!

 

That left Rick with the flamethrower which, in all honesty, would make most red-blooded soldiers feel rather good about themselves. He'd only give that up when he realised his new armour couldn't actually accomodate the tanks...

 

Well Ki-tat didn't want it back, Howitz was happy with the biggest baddest explodiest gun in the arsenal and Rick wasn't subtle enough to handle the heavy cannon anyway... Warlord hhad the auto and loved it like a child, Tammy had her own personal sidearm, 'less fighting more healing' as she would often say... Who really has time to fight when you're already busy getting bled on?

 

Tim was a pistol scout so along with Ed Dodge he was fronting the new laser pistol guinea pig duo... Donovan and Ibsen, Rick suddenly realised that he'd never really noticed either of them before. Same went for Ghost but after all you don't just take on any old callsign! No these two had suddenly become interesting though, they both had rifles, Rick's weapon of choice...

 

Warlord prodded Rick. "You calling or what?"

 

Rick snapped back to reality, "Oh sorry... Err, got any... nines?"

 

"Nines? Are you even playing this game? I just asked you for nines"

 

"Oh, what did I say?" asked a slightly baffled Rick.

 

"You said you didn't have any nines..."

 

"Oh yeah...," Rick looked at his cards and pulled a few out. "I lied, I have lots of nines." he passed three cards over to Warlord and smiled an innocent grin.

 

Just as Jack was about to comment, Rick stood up and took a stroll down the Skyranger to his two promising looking riflemen. He was about to kick up some innocent 'weapon-stealing' chat but he caught the glimpse of a fruitier target sat right by the deployment ramp.

 

Jennings was just sitting minding his own business, twiddling his thumbs and all the other stuff one does whilst minding their own business... He was also babysitting a nice shiny looking laser rifle. Just like a rifle but without the reload, or so the techies said. They'd had no overheats, it was fully submersible, frozen, burnt. According to one rather excitable youth in the workshop it was 'unbe-friggin-lievable man!' Rick wanted one, that one...

 

"Now what's a medically downgraded trooper like you doing on a specialist transport like this hey?" Rick looked down at Jennings and grinned.

 

"Good behaviour I guess" smiled Jennings. "Besides, the doctors were quite impressed with the healing. Apparently I'm made of tougher stuff"

 

"What did I tell you, the bigger the better! How is the old shoulder now?"

 

"It's getting there yeah," Jennings pulled his jacket off one shoulder to reveal the scar from his last encounter with plasma weaponry. "Kinda wish they hadn't given me this hokey thing though... Not sure I trust technology anymore... Ki-tat should have it really, all he was going on about in medical was how great those plasma things are..." Jennings shook his head and gestured to Ki-tat.

 

"He probably would but he's got his own plasma thing now so I don't think he'd swap for love nor money! If you think your shoulder's up to it though I wouldn't mind taking your rifle for this mission. I know how superstitious you get..."

 

"It's not superstition as such," replied Jennings.

 

"No sorry that's not what I meant. What did I mean to say... Oh yeah, I know how you get an overwhelming felling of dread and fear when you wake up in the morning," Rick grinned broadly, he got on well with Jennings. Lucky that really, he could have laid Rick out with virtually no effort at all!

 

"So how about it, fancy a swap?"

 

Jennings looked at his scar briefly then back at the harness on Rick's flamethrower. He couldn't even pretend to not want it... He poked the scarring under his uniform. It wasn't nearly as tender as it had been a few days ago...

 

"Done, I'll take yours, you can have mine. Thanks boss, appreciate it."

 

"No worries Robbo, you'd do the same for me"

 

Rick took the rifle off him and sat back down opposite Warlord. He admired the shiny piece of 'magical death-ray' technology in his lap, like a child with a new toy.

 

"I wondered what you were up to..." said Warlord shaking his head. "Are you happy now?"

 

"I have infinite ammunition, what kind of a question is that? Hell yes I'm happy"

 

"Good so, are we playing?"

 

"Sorry one minute..."

 

Rick only remembered when he was talking to Jennings that he should still have been in the med-lab. Then he'd only remembered when Ki-tat was mentioned that he should be ther as well...

 

"Ki-tat..." he called to him across a few seats.

 

"What's up doc?" called back Ki-tat leaning forward slightly to see.

 

Rick smiled, he was still playing with that plasma pistol! Then he realised he was playing with the laser rifle he'd just relieved Jennings of too, so he stopped smiling...

 

"Why aren't you still laid up? Are you healing up too? Do I have an invincible squad or what?"

 

Ki-tat laughed. "I wish, it still hurts like hell! Just couldn't stand waking up to those sour looking nurses anymore! I'll be fine, don't worry about it..." He leant back against the Skyranger and continued to play with his new pistol.

 

Rick sighed, grinned and shook his head all at once. The guy would most likely get himself killed, but Rick had a feeling Ki-tat was just lucky...

 

"Rick shall I just finish up with someone else here?" Warlord waved his cards at the squad leader in an attempt to extract a response.

 

"Yeah yeah ok I'm here now, I'm done... Is it my go?"

 

"Yes"

 

"Do you have any nines?"

[Ego Terrorist]

From what John knew, if the US government wanted to spend anything, it had to go through the an appropriations committee. The one that interested John was the US Select Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee it was the one that decided on the amount of funding US 'black' operations and programmes received, all of those on the committee had been given clearance to view top-secret information, and because of this they were also responsible for deciding on how much they should put forward to X-Coms budget. So when it came to maintaining favour with the U.S Government, it was this committee and its members that they had to deal with.

 

"Senator Moore, Senator Newman" Valerie shook the hand of each senator, both had risen out of their seats when she and her two 'bodyguards' entered the room. Both of them eyed her up. She was young and pretty. They were politicians, and influential members of the committee.

 

"Who are the two suits?" Asked Moore.

 

"They're my close protection officers." Valerie smiled pleasantly at the two men and went over what John had told her in the car. "As you both know I'm here representing X-Com, and as the two of you gentlemen will be aware there was a recent incident."

 

It was Newman who spoke first. "Yes, the killing of civilians on United States soil, funded by the US taxpayer. Then there was the whole incident on the Potomac, where a UFO crashes on US soil and is then destroyed by another UFO, no X-Com fighters were seen, and it was left to the pilots of the United States Air Force to oppose this alien aggression."

 

"And the Air Force pilots did an excellent job at engaging the UFO, and although regrettably one fighter and pilot was lost we have decided to recruit the other pilot into the X-Com Programme. He's a credit to the Air Force."

 

"Hmph."

 

"And what of this report of an incident between involving X-Com and a force of unidentified people?" Asked Moore from his seat. John had been studying him, Moore was smart, and not as prone to sounding off like his fellow Senator.

 

"We're looking into that, the implications of a hostile force that isn't alien engaging our forces in the field are very serious." Valerie considered the brief report she'd been given regarding the prisoners they'd taken that day. One was a mercenary the other was a diplomat. So far no one had asked for whom, but the meeting was taking place on U.S. soil...

[Bomb Bloke]

The card game (and several after) had finished up well before the 'Ranger reached it's destination. Howitz had moved up with Jennings towards the exit, ready to provide a smoke screen when the ramp dropped. Like the other soldiers, he'd picked up one of the new, unconventional weapons, but had been quite prepared to go with one of the oldest pieces - a laser pistol. "The cutting edge is the bleeding edge" was a saying he'd long since taken to heart, and besides, the thing had no kickback at all - a great advantage for a man who considered a gun to be a secondary weapon.

 

That wasn't to say it was tried and tested technology - The laser weapons had only been used once in the field, and because at the time it had being snowing, they'd most made pretty lights and burnt out. This model had a mass-produced design look to it however, and was probably trustworthy enough for his purposes. His ears pricked as the engines changed their roar to indicate they were arriving. A few team members twisted around on their side seats to get a view of the combat zone, looking for a sign of the reported "demons".

 

By now command had set up a semi-decent plan of action for local authorities to take when X-Com was to be called in. They'd wouldn't know who was giving the orders, and they might not like them, but they were passed through enough departments to make them look valid, and so they were followed. Basically, the entire area was cordoned off in a circle, with a radius of about a kilometer. Civilians were allowed out but no one was allowed in. The idea was that aliens so far hadn't ventured too far from where their ship dropped them off (presumably to allow for easy pickup), and probably wouldn't spread as far as the barrier... This also meant that city forces wouldn't be able to attempt a strike against the aliens (which they hopefully wouldn't even see, making the exact identity of the attackers unconfirmed), and those people who were within the area would have their names noted down before they could leave it (which loudspeakers would encourage them to do). Explaining incedents away was still tricky, but this would make things a lot easier, and also reduce fatalities. The aim was to have only a few of the natives in the area by the time X-Com forces arrived.

 

Cheese lowered his craft down to the tarmac of a decent sized carpark, neatly filling a large number of parking spaces. He hadn't yet seen anything that could rattle his nerves, but he was still glad the windshield he was sitting behind had been re-inforced with an ultra-thin layering of alien alloys. In order for him to see through it, it was really only a spray on solution containing the same compounds as Rick wore, and while no one had actually fired a plasma weapon at it to find out, there was a chance it'd be more protective that way. The teches spoke of the alloys like they were the classic immovable object, and the plasma weapons as if they were the unstoppable force, but both definitions couldn't be right. He was only vagually relieved that he wasn't the main guinea pig in that experiment, while trying to remind himself that he'd asked to be there...

 

The ramp lowered fairly quickly, but there was already a thick cloud of smoke around the rear exit of the craft before it hit the ground. Howitz flicked the pins out after the smoke bombs, and rolled out and to the side of the craft besides the wheel on his right. There wasn't any tank loaded for this mission - although Slice was fairly competitant at steering the things by now, they tended to take a shot somewhere vital early on, taking them out of combat before they could be any use. Hence they were to have an extra layer of armor slapped on before the costly beasts were to be deployed again.

 

He rolled around the to the other side of the wheel as the next soldier came down his way. He'd attached his positioning tablet to his left arm, and could keep half an eye on it as he swept his gaze around the area. He couldn't see anything, and neither could anybody else - the smoke had thinned out enough that they could see out of it, whilst still being practical for cover.

 

Well, a clear LZ. That was a change-

 

His instincts kicked his body into action before he knew what he was doing, and he'd twisted his aim 180° mere fractions of a second after the roar began. He felt his mouth begin to drop open as a car - a freakin' car - took off from the other side of the 'Ranger and slammed into it, nearly falling onto a stunned Jennings who'd taken position there. The man darted behind it with surprising speed considering the tanks on his back, and sat there under the ship white faced, while his mouth silently tried to speak without benefit of words coming from his brain.

 

As the radio line started to fill up with exclamations and various swear words, Jack crawled to the front wheel of the ship, and stared out in time to see the massive orange beast ram into the vehicle it had somehow thrown, the force enough to knock Ripper - who was coming down the SkyRangers' ramp - off his feet.

 

Ok, maybe not a clear LZ...

[Tammy]

Within a few seconds of the impact, Tammy was at the open door of the Ranger looking for wounded. She spotted Ripper at the bottom of the ramp, but he was already getting back to his feet, so there didn't seem to be any emergency--yet. Considering that her weaponry consisted of a laser pistol and medical equipment, she ducked back inside the door to let the big guns through. Ed Dodge ran past her, firing at the creature as he moved. Two or three bullets found their way into the creature's hide, but it seemed near unstoppable. The creature roared in annoyance at this new irritant and swatted Ed against the side of the craft. Tammy watched in horror as he was crushed beyond recognition. She didn't need a medikit to know that he was beyond her help. Warlord stepped up beside her, levelled his autocannon at the monster and fired three times. Three gaping holes opened in its hide as it crumpled to the pavement.

 

Warlord turned to Tammy and winked, "Who's next"