PFC Ignatyev II: Baptism

Strike Team Alpha:

LT. Aleksandr "Juggernaut" Novikov (Gunner)
SGT Terminal "Batman" Boy (Assault)
CPL Ashley "Chief" Williams (Infantry)
LCPL Patricia Martinez (Medic)
SPEC Fiona Morrison (Scout)
SPEC Hans Mulder (Rocketeer)
PFC Andrey Ignatyev (Rookie)

Carlton Ranch, 5 mi. northwest of Jetmore, Kansas
LZ Orel, 0142 Hours, May 16

This is how I die, was my first thought. A tentacled horror the likes of which I have never seen in my darkest nightmares, swarming through the air toward my face as I took my first steps out of the LZ.

My second thought was, Fuck that! Distantly I could hear someone crying out, "Seeker!"

It was still ten meters away when I pulled the trigger. My lasgun belched a vicious lance of ruby light and stabbed into the seeker's side. A gout of flame jetted from the monstrosity and it kept coming, but its unpredictable, eratic movements turned into a graceful ballistic arc that terminated in a hail of energy from Lieutenant Novikov's autolaser.

The seeker's smoldering wreckage skimmed over my head and crashed into the ground as Novikov hauled his weapon back around. "Guns up," the lieutenant said. "Stay close and watch each other's backs! Morrison, pull back from that flank, let him come to us!"

To our left, the Scot replied, "Yes lieutenant, I—Wait!"

"Morrison, do you- Terminal!" Novikov looked at my team leader, his command unspoken but understood.

"Andy, on me!" Terminal shouted as he hefted his shotgun and took off running towards Morrison's last known location. In my left ear, I heard the distorted tones of our commander at Zander HQ: "Be advised, second seeker has engaged Specialist Morrison."

Terminal disappeared behind the corner and I heard the blast of his shotgun as I turned and brought him into view. Stray pellets were bouncing everywhere – his shot must have glanced off the tentacled monstrosity.

It was thrashing around in a ball of confusion, but I could see that it had one mechanical tentacle wrapped around Morrison's throat, and its erratic movements were very obviously meant to snap the Specialist's neck like a twig – it was a miracle that she hadn't been killed already. I brought my lasgun to bear and suddenly my sights were filled with nothing but Morrison's terrified face.

Her screaming visage vanished just as quickly and she was rammed headfirst into the side of the silo hard enough to leave a dent. Terminal's shotgun belched again, striking true at the wriggling terror, and a tentacle spun off, severed at its base. It curled and twitched, still wrapped around Morrison's neck, as the seeker snarled at Terminal and launched itself in the air, its "mouth" opening to reveal a wicked looking gun barrel, glowing green.

My shot was clear, and I took it. The mouth must have been unarmored, for the lasgun cored straight through the seeker and emerged out the top of its head. The wreckage went ballistic and came crashing down to the ground not five feet from where Morrison was unwinding the severed tentacle and struggling to her feet, dazed from her brush with death.

Terminal squared her shoulders and placed her lasgun back in her hands. "Tough it out, Morrison – we gotta see this through."

"Right with you, Sarge," the Scot replied between coughs. She kicked the still-active tentacle away from where it was trying to wrap around her leg.

"Andy," Terminal turned to me. "Nice shooting."

The wreckage smoldered at my feet. Not ten feet away, Novikov was kicking the other seeker over, bits and pieces falling off that first thoroughly-shredded automaton. I'd killed one and helped with the other.

The lieutenant said, "Negative contact."

Terminal responded, "Agreed. All clear."

"Were those scouts?" I asked Novikov. "Did they get off a warning?"

"These types don't seem to communicate – Dr. Vahlen says they're fully automated – no sentience or cooperation at all, just operational parameters. Trust me, you'll know when an X-ray calls out to the other ETs." Novikov turned back North, venting coolent from his autolaser as he called in to HQ. "Zander HQ, Strike Six. Orders?"

The commander spoke from our left ear again. "Strike Six, Zander HQ – UAV has the UFO on scope one-zero-zero meters north, and there's a meld signature to your front left. Recommend you split your squad. Secure the meld on the left and clear the barn to your right. Use the cover of the barn to sneak closer to the UFO without alerting any crew inside."

"Concur, Zander HQ. Wilco." To us: "Terminal, take Black Team up to the meld canister and secure it for the salvage team. You know the drill. Yellow, on me and stack up on the barn."

I paced Terminal, Fiona following behind, rubbing her neck where bruising was just starting to emerge. Behind us, I heard a muted, "3… 2… 1… Turn!"

The meld canister was like the ones I'd seen in the training vids, pulsing with a strange alien energy. Terminal looked at us and said, "Watch" as he nimbly plucked something off of the rotating top. Instantly, the blast shield atop the canister splayed open like a flower, revealing a glowing gold crystal. It pulsed and morphed in strange, regimented ways unlike anything I'd ever seen.

"And that's how you do it," Terminal said. "Now let's see if they've gotten the party started."

Yellow had cleared the interior of the barn, and as we jogged back over, Novikov was lifting open a tilting window for Mulder to climb through, rocket launcher and all. The thing clanked against the frame, the muted sound seeming to echo forever through the empty building. He paused in the open ground between the barn and the UFO and glanced around – we held our breath.

Clear Mulder signed to us. The lieutenant gestured us forward, and we each climbed through the window as quietly as we could, padding forward in the no-man's land until I felt the strangely reassuring bulk of alloy hull cold against my left arm. In front of me, Martinez the medic was eying a meld canister to our front. To my rear, Mulder was eying another meld canister himself on the other side of the UFO. I glanced around, nervous. What if an alien saw us now? What if they're over there in the tractors?

Then hopefully I wouldn't feel a thing. They said that plasma weaponry burned away the nerve connections so cleanly that the wounds were painless. The screaming I'd heard before from the infirmary seemed to indicate otherwise, but whatever made me most comfortable with the idea of impending death was what I focused on. Plasma is painless. Plasma is painless.

A hand patted my shoulder, and I did the same to Martinez. We shifted forward – I took the corner and watched to the right as she padded forward, scanning to her left into the UFO itself.

Nothing.

She reached the meld and did the same flourish Terminal had done, and the canister flowered in its unnatural beauty. I glanced behind me and saw Mulder disarm his canister too, the lieutenant's autolaser and 'Chief's heavy lasgun keeping a weather eye on the proceedings. All was going well.

And then it wasn't.

I could feel something go wrong. It chilled my bones as I felt an unearthly wail sweep through my body that I couldn't hear, and time slowed as I felt 'Chief' jog me into movement.

Mulder's light lasgun came up in slow motion, as though coated in molasses. Novikov's mouth was screaming something as his autolaser spooled up, and Terminal with laspistol drawn was barging past me into the UFO shouting at me, "Go long!" with Fiona close behind.

Mulder's warning reached me as my legs pumped into a sprint. I charged headlong into the front of the UFO and the world exploded with the blinding flare of energy weapons.

"Outsider!"

-TO BE CONTINUED-

X-Com Procedures: Seeker Analysis

Seekers are a unique element of the alien arsenal with breathtaking computational and behavioral heuristics. Whereas aliens tend to be interrupted performing other duties, the Seeker is a vicious, single-minded machine, dedicated to the neutralization of enemy combatants. Able to quickly assess and sort threats, Seekers will move unpredictably towards any X-Com operatives, prioritizing our men and women over civilians, police and even non-X-Com military personnel. Seekers appear to have a highly accurate understanding of human anatomy, for despite their relatively light mass, their preferred method of attack is through gruesome manipulation of limbs, joints and the human neck. A Seeker will latch onto its target with one or more tentacles and then attempt to disable the operative by snapping bones and breaking joints. In the process, their movements are highly erratic and unpredictable, rendering them difficult to bring under effective fire without simultaneously endangering the grappled operative.

A/N: In contrast with the passive-aggressive "just checking if you were paying attention" strangling that they demonstrate in-game, I like to think of Seekers as behaving more like really light-weight, flying versions of the mimics from Edge of Tomorrow. ~ Ferrard