For six years, mankind has waged a Secret War against an enemy from Beyond the Stars. It was during the autumn of 2006 that the Unryu farm was made the victim of these Visitors. Inadvertently leading the aliens back to Nerima after the trauma of his abduction, Ryouga and Ranma got their first taste of combat against the alien menace. Eventually rescued from a crashed ship by XCOM, the extraterrestrial combat organization branch of UNETCO, the Nerima Wrecking Crew has been conscripted into the war as two special four man squads: India and Juliet.

The UNETCO timetable moves ever forward, but a new complication has arisen as the alien forces in the Far East surge out in unexpected numbers and with surprising fury.


The Road to Cydonia
Chapter XV
Snake Hunter


Written by:
Capn Chryssalid


All hell shall stir for this.

King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.


They met in darkness, as came more naturally to them. They were blind, but they saw all that transpired around them. They were deaf, but they knew the words before they were even spoken. They were mute, but their orders were followed without question. They were frail, but they were feared by all.

So they met in darkness.

Hollow Eyes ranked third among them, though they were equals in the impression of the Mind. His expertise and goals were, however, considered outlandish and unorthodox, and so his standing among those three 'equals' suffered. To his left floated Scarred Face, the unhealed plasma burns that so marked him obvious even in his psionic extra-sensory presence. He was old. He had seen much; done much, and he had little to prove. He was first among them for this.

To Scarred Face's left, Wink floated, the strong reddish tinge of his robes reflecting his fierce ambitions. He was physically deformed, not that that mattered to an Ethereal, with one eye socket grown over by bone and mottled flesh. Across from the three Ethereals, their servitors stood, waiting. They, too, were three: Sectoid, Muton, Snakeman.

IT COMES

"They will intercept it." Zraz was the only one present with an actual name. He, like his Snakemen comrades, remained primitive creatures who clung to an individual identity as a reason for existence. They were limited beasts, given paltry weapons and simple aims.

"We are also concerned," the Sectoid projected his thoughts as a proper intelligent being should, though they were tentative and near muted compared to an Ethereal's mental tempest. "Without sufficient Elerium, we rely too heavily on infiltrates."

WE CAN NOT RELY ON THOSE

THEY ARE WEAK

Hollow Eyes disagreed with Wink, un-surprisingly.

THEY SERVE US WELL WE CAN MAKE MORE

UNTESTED

THE NEW BATCH OF SERVANTS ARE READY WE CAN USE THEM

MORE

Scarred Face needed think no more to prompt the Muton overseer.

"The new soldiers are unstable," the massive creature spoke in a guttural tongue, for the benefit of Zraz. The Ethereals and the Sectoid heard his thoughts clearly enough without the need for coarse sounds. "They think about themselves. Two have self-executed. The new programming is not being safely assimilated."

Hollow Eyes shared his thoughts before Wink got the chance to defend his project.

THEY ARE LIMITED SERVANTS THESE THOUGHTS ARE NOT COMPATIBLE THEY CAN NOT COMPREHEND OR FUNCTION WITH THEM

ITERATION WILL RESOLVE THE PROBLEMS UNDESIRABLE RESULTS WILL BE EXPENDED ITERATION WILL BRING PERFECTION

As usual, it fell to Scarred Face to make the decision.

The Ethereal Commander's tiny golden eyes glowed hotly.

EXPEND THEM

Hollow Eyes was not pleased by the dictate. It was a waste of resources to keep making new batches of mutons and floaters using hybridized mental programming. They did not have the minds to process the information properly. It was no surprise that they were unstable. The waste, the inefficiency, made his thoughts sour. Even if he could benefit from Wink's project being discredited, his priority was always to serve the interests of the Mind.

But if he would not have proper soldiers to carry out his desires, infiltrates would have to do. Scarred Face was not averse to the prospect, and Wink was openly dismissive of it, but the Mind would recognize Hollow Eyes' worth and ability. The Mind would approve of him, and his existence would be justified. He reached out with his formidable mind, contacting one of his infiltrate thralls.

IT IS TIME

Hollow Eyes then added, for good measure.

DEMONSTRATE YOUR VALUE

The tiny trembling human mind replied with energetic acceptance. Just like that, it was put into motion. Those of no use would be removed from circulation. In time, it would be as if they never existed.


November 29

The mission had gone belly up from almost the moment of insertion.

Ranma gritted his teeth and cringed as a flash of green light, blindingly fast even to him, tore through the air. It eventually hit one of a line of cherry trees flanking the inside of the villa driveway, and an instant later the trunk exploded from the inside, spraying charred-to-the-point-of-ash splinters in every direction. He was just outside the residential home of Takashi Somei, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It wasn't a social visit.

They'd been ambushed less than a minute after leaving the Lightning and right from the get go these aliens had proven to be rather different from the ones Juliet and India squad had faced before. Ranma tried to calm himself after the near miss. They were up against Snakemen, and good ones, too. Not that he had any personal experience with the breed before, but he'd read plenty about them. They were soldiers, skilled, practiced; dangerous.

"Saotome-taichou," Konatsu reported; Ranma heard him over their secure intercom. "We've taken the last of the guards to a secure area. They should be safe."

"Roger, Juliet Two. Juliet Three? Are you in position yet?"

Shampoo's reply belied her situation. She was breathing heavily, and not from exhaustion. He'd heard an explosion off in her direction, but she'd informed him then that she as unhurt. His HUD readout of all four Juliet Squad members confirmed it. She'd obviously been rattled, however, and was still recovering.

"Yes, but…" she managed to say, and her voice calmed somewhat. The tension told in her speech, which began to revert more to what he was used to from her Nerima days. "Not good. Not very good. They used grenade, or maybe bomb. I need… need to find better position."

Ranma weighed his options.

"Alright," he decided. "Konatsu, leave the guards and back up Shampoo. Move around to the south."

"Roger," Konatsu replied, his voice reserved as was his usual, even under pressure. Shampoo replied with the same word, if not the same tone. Ranma wasn't happy just leaving the guard's they'd recovered by themselves, but there was no choice. They were running out of time, plain and simple.

At exactly 7:12 PM, 29th of November, Radar and Hyperwave decoders belonging to UNETCO Far East confirmed the incursion of two alien craft in the upper atmosphere, flying side by side at around Mach 4.8. Three minutes later, aircraft were scrambled to intercept the UFOs: a large scout and a battleship. Four minutes after that, a UFO was detected rising from the lower atmosphere, just as another dropped out of orbit. Emergency reserve craft were routed to intercept.

By 7:29, the air battle had begun. Interceptors – Mach 3 fighter aircraft using the finest Earth based fuels and technology – were busy chasing down the weaker and smaller UFOs, trying to maneuver close enough to engage with plasma beams. The ship mounted weapons had a fifty two kilometer effective range, but against a speeding alien craft that could maneuver in defiance of inertia and gravity, that was easier said than done. The most powerful XCOM craft: an Avenger and two Firestorms (the former being a large Earth-alien hybrid design, and the latter simply Earth-built UFOs), concentrated on the battleship.

During the conflagration, at 7:31 PM, another large scout was detected in the lower atmosphere. A minute and a half later, the ship's mission profile was decoded: Alien Infiltration. Given the highly sensitive nature of an infiltration mission, the only remaining reserve craft in Seiran Mountain had been scrambled to shoot down the ship if possible, or prevent the success of the alien's mission on the ground if necessary. By 7:35 PM the Lightning (another Earth-built UFO, designed as a fighter-transport) took off with the two remaining squads on the base: India and Juliet. The others had already been loaded onto the base's Skyranger and Avenger, to effect ground assault on one of the supply ships and the battleship respectively.

During the flight, Ranma and Ryouga had tried to brief their squads.

Alien Infiltration, the most insidious of all activities: the aliens were trying to either coerce or control a government official, or covertly replace him with an alien hybrid or clone. More information would have to be gleaned during and after combat. The enemies were Snakemen, which meant a determined and organized resistance of the second-to-worst sort. These aliens had no outstanding weaknesses, but while bullets would be less than effective against them, lasers and plasma would work just fine. Estimated opposition was between eight and sixteen individuals, but probably twelve or fourteen.

On arrival, the Lightning had scanned the area. They had access to an up to date map of the area, but alien interference was preventing real time spy satellite updates. Immediately the signs of an Alien Infiltration were obvious: the guards were all unconscious, either knocked out by the gravitic distortion caused by the UFO as it landed or by the aliens themselves. The moment the Squads had moved to secure the bodies and move them out of the way, the aliens had opened fire.

Ranma could still remember the sound of one of the parked cars behind them, as a stray blast turned it into a fireball. The frame was still a molten mess, glowing red hot in the night like an ingot of gold. Luckily, they had used Konatsu's ninjutsu clones to approach the area first, and so no one 'real' had been killed in the ambush. Konatsu had taken it like a fist to the gut, however, and Ranma had been reminded once again that the agony the genius ninja had to endure in his role as scout wasn't imaginable to someone like him.

"It feels like I'm dead," Konatsu had said once, about the experience. "When I get shot, there's… just pain and light."

Ranma motioned to Ukyou, who was crouched behind a stone wall, her rifle held tight to her chest. She nodded, and used one of her polished spatulas to look over the top of the wall without exposing her body. He gave her a few seconds, but it didn't look like she could see anything about the alien (or aliens) pinning them down.

"Contact! Tango! No: two of them!" It was Ryu's voice. India Squad was advancing towards the villa from the northwest, to get into the building from the kitchen backdoor.

"Damnit, he's fast!" That was Mousse.

Suddenly, Ukyou all but screamed, "Grenade!"

A heartbeat later, Ranma's personal armor blared a proximity alert warning, indicting the detection of an incoming known explosive device. That warning didn't make it easier to see where the grenade was, not in such a short span of time, so he fell to the ground and covered his head. In the corner of his vision, he saw Ukyou doing shielding herself with her giant spatula, a technique she had learned while training with India Squad.

The grenade went off on the opposite side of the wall. It was much more powerful than a conventional human grenade, like the M61 or Mk3A2, and even going off five meters from the wall, it served to demolish the cover. Bits of blasted stone flew through the air, with a large piece hitting the ground with a thud right next to Ranma's left arm. Quickly rolling aside, Ranma moved into a crouch and back under what was left of the wall. A second later, the aliens opened fire again, plasma blasts tearing into the ground.

Leaning out just enough to get a good line of sight on his enemy, Ranma shouldered his T7A2 laser rifle and snapped off a trio of shots. It was dark, but his Personal Armor's built in sensors included advanced night vision equipment. The world was awash in shades of green, but amid the confusion, there was some electronic assistance. The suit integrated computer could recognize motion of sufficient dimensions (typically man-sized), and highlight that object on his HUD. A beam of bright white reached out across the battlefield, just missing the ducking alien, cutting a hot red scar into the concrete wall of the villa.

Ranma quickly ducked back behind cover, as more return fire peppered the area. The sound of the alien plasma weapons was very different than that of his laser rifle, so he could tell just by hearing when Ukyou took a few shots of her own. These Snakemen were giving them a tough time – normally this would be the point where high explosives were used, but the presence of human hostages (and one of them a member of the Japanese Cabinet, no less) meant that just wasn't an option. Even an auto cannon raised the possibility of killing someone inside the building, so a M-144 missile was totally out of the question.

Then, to his surprised delight, the screech of a wounded (or maybe killed) alien filled the air.

"Shampoo to Squad leader," the Amazon's voice was now cool and steady. "In position. Attacking."

Ranma ventured to take a few shots of his own, while the aliens scurried to find cover. Shampoo was using a heavy laser rifle, the T-8A1, which could project a 1.3mm diameter laser beam over an effective distance of two kilometers. Shampoo was still the best shot in both teams when she wasn't being rushed or harried, a product of having learned to use a rifle for hunting when she was younger. She was putting that old training, and the new indoctrination she had received at Seiran, to good effect.

He saw her beam fill the air. One moment there was nothing and the next there was a solid line. She obviously had the tracer on to gauge the dwell point of the beam as she raked it across a target. Unfortunately, it also gave away her position. There was no scream that time, but Ranma still saw movement, and he and Ukyou took aim and fired, leaving burning furrows in the villa walls. The Snakeman kept low, however, and slithered back into the house and out of view.

"Shampoo!" Ranma called over the intercom. "How many?"

"Two tangos down," she confirmed. "I'm moving. There's one in a window and he sees me."

"They're falling back!" Ryouga's voice was tense, and hinted at his perpetual anger towards the xenos. "Now! Now!"

"Got 'im!" That was Mousse, sounding more excited than usual. "Tango down!"

"Roof!" Ryu yelled. "Roof! Get down!"

Ranma motioned to Ukyou to get up and cover him as he advanced. He was tempted to try and Umisenken, but his blood was running pretty hot, and he wasn't sure how effective it would be. The technique affected the perception of those nearby, including any teammates, but tests showed that he still gave off heat. He'd show up on an infrared sensor (just like he's show up on a motion sensor), and Snakemen, like certain Earth snakes, had a natural ability to sense the strength and distance of a heat source.

The building up ahead was two stories high, built in the style of the old Shushō Kantei (or Prime Minister's mansion). There was a courtyard in the middle of the building, facing the curved driveway, and the house itself surrounded the courtyard on three sides, like a big C. According to schematics Intel had provided them (real spur of the moment, too; those boys worked fast), there were five entrances on the first floor. One on each side of the building where the courtyard merged into the front lawn, one at the far side of the courtyard leading to the sitting room facing the courtyard, one in the kitchen immediately north of the sitting room facing the back yard, and another in the reading room immediately south of the sitting room, also facing the back yard and the pool there.

"I'm clearing the roof! Heads up!" Ryouga yelled, alerting everyone to a thrown friendly grenade. A second later, a smaller explosion came from the top of the building – a HG85 AP Frag grenade. Seiran had stocks of both it and the M61, but HG85s were preferred for this mission because of the smaller kill radius. Again, the hostages had hamstrung their assault options. Ranma disliked the grenades intensely himself. They seemed so… cheap a way of killing someone.

At that thought, his suit warned him again of an incoming explosive device.

Falling onto his back, and knowing it came from above, Ranma placed both of his palms upward and concentrated. It was just like knocking back a Happodaikarin, just like dealing with one of Happosai's stupid firecracker bombs, he reminded himself. He could do it! The ki of his confidence ignited between his fingers and took form under his mental command before escaping as a tide upwards.

"Moko Takabisha!"

The ki blast engulfed the alien grenade and the concussive force threw it up and into the air, where it exploded a second and a half later. Ukyou, meanwhile, seemed to have gotten a bead on the elusive alien lurking on the roof. She was firing at it desperately, laser beams raking savagely back and forth over the rooftop. On the third shot she was awarded with a screech like a bat's.

"Tango down!" Ukyou announced, and then seemed to think twice about it. "He's wounded, if not dead."

"Let's find out," Ranma replied, and flipped back onto his feet. Like the rest of the Nerima Crew (well, except Kuno), he had an option that wasn't available to most soldiers just wearing personal armor. Flexing powerful leg muscles, and equally powerful ki, Ranma broke into a short run and jumped. For comparative purposes, it could be pointed out that while the average vertical jump height for a skilled volleyball player was roughly 2.8 feet, Ranma in a single bound easily cleared two stories. It was his innate telekinetic and psionic power that allowed such a feat, the same essential mechanism that allowed an Ethereal to float or "physically" lift many times its own weight.

Landing on the roof, Ranma quickly brought his rifle up to shoulder level. "I'm on the roof. Check your fire."

Nearby, a Snakeman writhed, wounded but not dead, making a faint hissing sound. Ukyou had hit it, cutting the alien's right arm clean off. It occurred to Ranma then that the burned stump at its shoulder was what was making the noise. Snakemen had unusual muscle and cardiovascular systems that used the hydraulic principle to give them power. Air was literally being forced out of the severed and mostly cauterized muscle.

It was an inhuman creature, especially this close up. There were no legs, just a long snake-like foot. Ranma had seen a drawing of a snake woman once, something Hiroshi had gotten from some online manga or card game or something, and the body shape was similar to that. At some point midway up the torso, the snake-like foot became replaced by a humanoid chest with shoulders and muscular arms ending in four fingered hands. The skin was a pale orange, and up close, Ranma could see that it was smooth and scaly. The head and face resembled a skull with the skin pulled back taut, a cluster of teeth met in the center of the jaws, giving the appearance of smile or a grimace, depending on the angle. The eyes were set in sockets lined with red scales, but the pupils were the color of bright purple.

The alien reached for its fallen plasma rifle with its remaining arm.

Ranma took careful aim, but found himself hesitating just a bit. Ryouga had killed wounded aliens before, and the lost boy had never seemed to regret the act. Given the weapon he, or it (since Snakemen were asexual) used, it was just a soldier. Command had said that there was some benefit in taking a medic or engineer alive, but a common soldier would just be executed. Space in Alien Containment cost money, after all. If he stunned the creature here and now, most likely Ryouga would kill it himself once the mission was over, or he would order someone else to do the deed.

The alien had just brushed its fingers against its lost plasma rifle when a bright light entered its skull and ended its life.

"Saotome!" That was Kuno. "Do you need assistance?"

"No," Ranma replied, hoping he sounded as indifferent and cool as he wanted to actually feel. "Tango is down."