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"Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory."
~Sun Tzu
Chapter Fourteen: Advent Strikes Back
"Two minutes," Firebrand reported. Julie Richardson wondered if she always sounded so...tense. She'd never seen the elusive pilot back on the Avenger, and this was her first drop, but she'd always had the impression Firebrand was a professional.
And that was definitely nervousness in her voice.
"Right, then." Sergeant Kelly rose, and Corporal Quinn too. The pair stood at the far end of the drop bay, checking their weapons, and Julie supposed she should too. She knew her rifle quite well after all her time in the range, and she hoped she could use it well today. How many Advent soldiers or alien leash-holders would be down there...
Evening the odds, she reflected, was the task for her other weapon, and she reached over her shoulder to draw it.
"Dios mio." Corporal Mendoza stared when Julie hit the trigger, and a glowing orb of purple psi-energy sprang up between her amplifier's twin tongs. Shaped like a horseshoe with a comfort grip, criss-crossed with exposed wires and elerium crystal focuses, the psi-amp was clearly a rush job thrown together from what spare parts could be scavenged. But for its amateurish, unkempt look, the little thing drew on the ambient psi-energy of the air around just as efficiently as if it were studded with diamonds.
"Sorry!" Julie released the trigger, feeling foolish as all eyes turned to her. She wondered if even Firebrand watched, through the camera feed. "Was just...making sure it worked...didn't mean to unnerve everyone-"
"Julie," Aileen said, "if that thing can even the odds, you test it all you damn well want."
The redhead - natural redhead - mustered a smile, wondering if Firebrand wasn't the only one who was nervous and hadn't admitted it. "I'll certainly try."
"Sixty seconds. Coming up on the drop point. I see Alpha-seven."
"How bad is it?" Jane called. Firebrand hesitated.
"There's a lot of fire," she murmured, and a hollow note rang in her voice. "I see wreckage. Rubble."
"Do you have eyes on motion?" Commander Gallant asked. Julie waited just as breathlessly for the answer.
"Sir...I think so. It's hard to tell through the flames." Firebrand flicked a few switches. "I'm picking up scattered life signs. A few dozen survivors, some spread over the approach, most hunkered down in an old church. Definitely quite a few alien contacts. They're closing in."
"We've got to get down there," Mendoza swore. He rapped Pablo Nunez' shoulder. "You ready, Squaddie?"
"As I'll ever be." Nunez rose, sweeping up his sniper rifle. "Set 'em up for me."
"I'll be directing this one from the bridge," Gallant continued, and that was a highly personal note in the Commander's voice. Julie wondered what Alpha-seven meant to him...not that she didn't care. He just sounded so invested... "I expect zero fuckups today, people."
"Someone tell him that," Nunez might have muttered, with his comm turned off. Then again, Julie might have imagined it, and she certainly wasn't going to rat him out if not. Jane smirked, Quinn rolled her eyes...and Mendoza sucked in breath.
"Si, Commander," he said, and Julie supposed he spoke for everyone. She reached for an overhead handhold, and it was a moment's work to pull herself up, even with turbulence.
"Fifteen seconds." With that announcement, the rear bay doors hissed, and Julie swallowed.
"That...that is a lot of fire," she whispered, looking at the orange-tinted hellscape before them. Flames rippled through Swedish trees, set in ramshackle haven construction just as evenly, and even searing from the old fossil fuel cars most haven occupants used. Broken transmitters and relays lay scattered, and the bodies...Julie's swallow became more of a gulp, as she beheld burnt skin and figures shredded by mag-fire, the damage visible even from the dropship's stern, in passing at hundreds of miles per hour.
Quinn muttered under her breath. Nunez shook his head, pale and sick. Julie saw Mendoza reach to his breast pocket, as if for reassurance.
"Right. Looks bad." That was understatement of the highest order, but Jane looked to be working hard at moving forward instead of getting caught up in the genocide she beheld. "We drop, we secure the LZ. We wait for orders from Avenger, but we split into teams and work outward looking for survivors in the absence of." Jane paused, patting the shotgun hanging from her shoulder. "Aileen, what am I-"
"Your sword, Fighting Irish."
"Stupid!" Jane swore a bit more colorfully, her accent thickening with her anger. She reached for her weapons storage. "I hate this thing!"
"In position," Firebrand reported. Lines dropped from beyond the bay doors. "Hit the road, people, and get to work. Meter's running."
"Go!" Jane ordered, while she fiddled with her scabbard strap. "I'll be right behind you!"
"Come on!" Mendoza waved, and he was the first to seize his line and shoot for the ground. Julie swallowed, hoping the landing was only as hard as in the gymnasium during practice.
Then she was the second operative down the line, with Quinn and Nunez hot behind her.
She wondered if she was the only one who prayed on the descent.
"Menace is on the ground," Bradford reported. Gallant eyed the holodisplay.
"Good. Go in hot: shoot any aliens or Advent on sight."
"Sir." Bradford nodded. "Deployment?"
"Menace, this is Gallant." He examined their flashing blue icons for a moment. "Kelly and Mendoza, secure the church perimeter. Make sure there's no hostiles blocking the civvies' escape route. Richardson, Quinn, Nunez: you've got the building. Sweep the area, take out any hostiles you encounter, and rescue everyone you can." He contemplated his orders for a moment, then had to add to them. "Don't get killed."
"Roger that, Commander." Quinn was more diplomatic than most of her team. Gallant imagined the eye-rolling and the scoffing...but then his gaze turned back to the floating visual feeds from Firebrand, and his grip on the rail tightened.
God. It's just like Brussels...
It wouldn't be. It was not going to end the same, if Gallant had to deploy himself to change things.
He set his teeth and waited.
"So far, so clear," Mendoza muttered, rifle up as he moved through the trees. He spared a glance for the other team, disappearing into the burning haven en route to their destination. "I hear lots of shouting."
"From all around us," Jane confirmed. Mendoza took comfort in having her and her giant shotgun at his left. "I can't place any of it."
"Same." Mendoza's feet fell on dirt, on ash, on scattered bullet casings and discarded dolls and toys. He saw someone's laundry billowing across the charred forest, and he hoped most everything got caught on trees. He didn't have time to grab any of it.
Silence now. Neither soldier spoke, both wary of revealing their position to anyone paying too much attention. They advanced at slow walks, fingers never far from the trigger, hearts racing.
"Damn it," Mendoza whispered, as a woman's shriek filled the air. "Where's that..."
"Ahead." Jane picked up the pace. "We can't be far. Come on!"
They sped up. Together, the Rangers jogged for the source of the noise, teeth set, wincing as they waited to hear another scream, or a howled plea for mercy.
"What I don't understand," Mendoza muttered, as they passed burning trees with lit-up limbs, "is how the hell Advent found this place. Buried in the forest like this? I imagine they had a signal jammer and a disruptor to prevent satellite recon from spotting them. So how on Earth..."
"A man on the inside?" Jane wondered. "I don't know, corporal. But I think we'll find out before the day's done."
Well, that was encouraging. Mendoza took a steadying breath. "Maybe. But-"
Jane saw it first. She shoved, and Mendoza stumbled behind a tree, clutching his rifle as he, too, detected the three figures hurrying their way, mag-rifles in hand. Two were soldiers, with their boxy helmets and boxy shoulders, but the third was leaner, looser, and had something else on her back-
"Contact!" Mendoza shouted. He popped out to shoot, but the Advent soldiers ducked for cover as quickly as he and Jane did, shouting what must have been the same thing in their language. "Multiple contacts ahead!"
"Engage!" Jane cried, and her shotgun boomed an instant later. Buckshot sprayed the dirt, and Mendoza saw one of the Advent troopers stagger from a glancing hit. For a moment, he was exposed, and the Mexican lined up his shot.
Crack-crack-crack!
"Got him!" he cried, as the soldier toppled, ventilated by rifle fire. The Ranger took careful aim at the other one, hiding behind a tree and firing blind around its corner. Red shots whizzed by, and Mendoza and Jane both covered their heads, he pressing his spine into a tree of his own while she crouched behind a moss-coated stone. "When he switches mags, I'll pin him down while you move to flank!"
"Gotcha!" Jane agreed. She readied her shotgun. "Say when!"
Bang-bang-bang-bang...
It happened. The soldier's blind fire paused, and Mendoza snapped out. He took aim, squeezing the trigger to put a burst into the Advent puppet's tree.
"I've got him!" he shouted. "Kelly, go-"
There weren't two. There was three, and the third one burst from the dark in a flash of running feet, gun hanging at her side. Mendoza spun, leveling his rifle as she whipped that long, orange-glowing, crackling thing from her back-
Pain. Pain as the baton rammed into his arm, and volts and impact alike made the limb go numb. She grinned under her circular dome helmet, sadistic glee shining on her stimulant-colored cheeks. Mendoza howled, dropping his gun to grab for his sword left-handed-
The second strike was a slash, not a stab. Hooked tines on the baton's edge caught Mendoza's flesh, and his eyes went wide as he felt his throat ripped out. He choked, collapsing to his knees, hands rising to the rushing flood of red from below his chin, white light everywhere even as the pain became overwhelming-
The stun lancer's third strike wasn't strictly necessary. But the overhead fractured Carlos Mendoza's skull in one hit, and he fell to the ash-stained forest floor at the lancer's feet.
He was dead before he'd even hit the ground.
"What the hell is happening on the left?" Corporal Quinn demanded. Julie swallowed.
"I don't know," she managed, ducking as a propane tank finally had enough of the fire. Ash floated on the breeze.
"Where are the civvies?" Pablo Nunez scanned through his scope. "I don't see any here."
"Hang on." Julie breathed deeply. She clutched her rifle, trying to see past her eyes, past the screams, past ash and hate and anger and death and the overpowering stench of rotted meat...
"I feel...something...not far." Julie pointed. "That way. Feels like a family. Two families? I'm not sure. Six or seven people."
"Works for me. We clear them, then we clear the church." Quinn beckoned. "On me. Keep it tight."
"Roger, Corporal." Julie took up position at Quinn's left, and Nunez at her right. The redhead - white-head? That sounded like a zit - paused to mop her brow. "I thought Sweden was cold...it's boiling here..."
"Burning," Nunez corrected, which shut her up immediately. Julie's throat was so, so dry...
"Hold up!" Aileen raised a hand. Julie froze, and her gaze snapped forward.
She saw them, too.
"Contact!" The psi-op dove behind the nearest stack of burning crates, risking the flames to avoid behind hit by the snap-shots from the pair of angry, shouting Advent troopers ahead. Their master shrieked, lithe and pink and dropping to all fours as it skittered behind a tree, big alien eyes full of menace and plasma-gauntly glowing green with energy. Julie took aim and let off a burst, which did a good job of nothing. "Sectoid, two escorts!"
"I see the civvies!" Nunez cried. "Caught in the middle! I think that's the Denmother and a few others-"
"Engage!" Gallant ordered. "Take the bastards down! Get her out of there!"
"You heard him!" Aileen rose, and her rifle roared. "Nessie, shock protocol!"
"Nicked him!" Julie shouted, as her shots grazed a soldier's side. He stumbled, then snarled, pointing angrily at her in a way that made her eyes widen.
Bang! Nunez' rifle barked, and Julie wanted to cheer when a hole appeared in the Adventer's helmet. He collapsed, but then his companion was laying down suppressive fire, and Nunez had to duck.
Chittering. Chattering bug-noises bore on the wind, and Julie paused as the world seemed to...were things a little more purple than they had been...
Haze!
"No!" Julie clutched her head as pressure burst in her skull. She dropped to one knee as the tendrils of violet hate seared around her, boring from the sectoid's cranial implants and picking at the edges of her consciousness.
Kill, they called. Kill, maim, kill! Glory to the Elders!
"Glory...glory..." Julie cried out as it drove deeper, harder, more viciously...
Kill! Glory to the Elders! Kill!
Her hand moved from her head over her shoulder.
"Glory...glory..." Julie's teeth set as she hit the trigger on her psi-amp, and a ball of her own searing purple energy burst into her palm. She fought the sectoid with every fiber of her being, and she drew on the field she could now touch. "...glory...to my ass...bitch."
She released the energy, and it blew outward into an inverse fishbowl, doming around her for a half-second of pure protection, driving the alien's power away and off into the sky. The creature yelped, as if the repulsion caused it physical pain. Its flinch brought it into the open, and Nunez' rifle barked again. Though yellow blood sprayed, Julie didn't think the never-sufficiently-damned creature was dead.
"Nice one!" Quinn cried. Julie gasped for air, sweating and shivering, though she did manage a smile.
"Thanks, Corporal-"
Crack!
"What's it doing?" Nunez demanded, as purple light bore in from all sides, vortexing around the fallen soldier's body. "It's...is it-"
"Zombie!" Quinn roared, and Julie's breath caught as she saw it rise, shambling and staggering, posture loose and unkempt, leaning forward with arm dangling as it stumbled across the field of fire, gasping and choking in a most hideous way-
"Kill it again!" Nunez ordered, and he dropped his rifle to whip out his sidearm as the distance decreased. Julie rose to put a burst into the creature-
Bang-bang-bang!
"Damn it!" The psi-op tumbled, clutching her side. She screamed from the pain, her bones chilling as her hand came away bloody. "I'm hit!"
"On it!" Quinn shouted. "Nessie, medical-"
Boom!
Purple. It flew from the edges of the void, and Julie's breath caught as it circled Quinn's head, boring into her ears and eyes, surging up her nose with her shocked inhalation.
"It's..." Quinn jerked, very suddenly, and she even lifted up an inch off the ground, thrashing wildly as the Power ripped into her, burning her synapses and driving strings into her limbs. "IT HURTS!"
"Fight it!" Julie shouted. She scrambled to hands and knees, struggling to move with her side burning. "Corporal-"
"IT'S INSIDE ME!" Quinn shrieked, voice breaking as she thrashed and twitched, head nearly spinning. "IT'S-"
She cut off. Quinn's feet hit the ground, and Julie ground to a halt as the Specialist straightened.
"It's nothing," she monotoned, opening her eyes to reveal them tinted purple, glowing with alien light. "Everything is fine."
"Mendoza!" Jane Kelly fired a snapshot at the figure looming over her partner's corpse -twitching maybe, but that he was a corpse wasn't in doubt, not with that much blood - but the thing melted into the trees, moving so fast Jane just knew it had genetically enhanced legs. She swore.
Mendoza's dead-
"No time!" she snapped to herself, ducking as red fire shot in from further down the trees. That was the soldier, still in action despite everything, and Jane reached for her belt. "All right, you jerk." She ripped the ring free, then tossed the pineapple it left behind. "This one's for Carlos!"
Motion. Before the grenade had even detonated, Jane saw motion in the corner of her eye, and heard rushing footsteps. She whirled-
Bang! That was her shotgun, though not it firing. She barely interspersed the weapon between her face and the glowing, crackling stun baton in time, and the lancer shrieked annoyance and hate into her face.
Boom! The grenade went off, and Jane had to hope it had killed the soldier, because she certainly couldn't stop to look, not now. She kicked-
"Shit!" She staggered as that baton swung low, and her ankle hit the ground shocked and bashed, though thankfully not ripped by those tines. She brought her gun up, heedless of the ache in her leg, but the baton flashed again, and she had to parry. Parry, parry, teeth set, backing up into open ground under the assault-
"Bit of old vinegars!" screamed the lancer, as it ripped the shotgun from her hands. Jane reached up over her shoulder, and in the nick of time she whipped her own blade out, parrying a strike that would have ripped her head from her shoulders. She wove backward, striking where she could but for the most part struggling just to evade or block the incoming swings.
Clang! sang sword and baton. Clang! Clang-clang!
Tines. Tines hooked on Jane's blade, and she was grateful for the rubber hilt as electricity coursed its length. That didn't help her when the lancer yanked and her sword flew from her hands, but it was something, even though the Irishwoman's sword did two full flips and drove point-first into the dirt a good five meters distant.
She lunged. Jane wrapped one hand around the lancer's wrist, and the other caught its shoulder. She heaved, and the thing did too, and for a moment they grappled, knees flying and feet stomping as they sought advantage. Jane set her teeth.
"Oi!" She drove her forehead into the creature's flat nose, and that penetrated its calm. The lancer stumbled, and Jane seized the moment and its weapon. Unfortunately, the thing caught on in the last possible moment, and it threw its baton off to the left.
"Damn it!" Jane punched the Advent loyalist again. "Fine! I don't need a weapon to deal with-"
"Donut!"
That was the trooper, mag-rifle raised as he took aim.
Jane's heart skipped a beat...and that was before the soldier fired.
"Quinn!" Julie hesitated as the medic loomed, grabbing for her discarded rifle. "Corporal-"
"Everything is fine, Julie." Quinn claimed the gun. "Please remain still."
"Settle down!" Pablo Nunez seized the medic around the throat, and he hauled her back. "We're friends, corporal! You're XCOM!"
"Glory to the Elders," Quinn said, and that dry, emotionless monotone sent shivers up Julie's spine.
"Shit!" The psi-op ducked as more shots came in, then took a deep breath. "Nunez, lock her down!"
"Working on it!" the Spaniard cried, before hauling her to the ground. Quinn's rifle scattered, and the two wrestled, rolling across ash and grass. Julie's gaze flicked from the corporal...to the sectoid.
"All right," she growled, grabbing her fallen amp. "If that's the game you want, you son of a bitch, that's the game we'll play." She hit the trigger.
Power. Power searing and power rising, power glowing in her palm. She drew on it and built it up, feeding it from her natural gift and pulling in whatever she could from the auras around her. Her veins and eyes glowed, and she for a moment held a world in her hand.
No gun, no weapon of war, could ever match this kind of power.
"Melt!" she ordered, unleashing her strength. Energy surged through the air, and she did her best to channel it, focusing the acidic, ripping strength she commanded on-
The sectoid shrieked. It skittered from cover, thrashing and clutching at itself, as purple energy literally ate away at its skin, driving invisible, ethereal knives into its muscles and weak points. The creature wailed, and Julie almost felt a stab of pity.
It went away when she looked back at Corporal Quinn, going limp in Nunez' grip as her captor thrashed out its last heartbeats.
"It's down!" Julie cried, as the sectoid fell. She clutched her side, sucking in breath as she watched the zombie teeter its last few steps. Finally, the decrepit thing fell to its knees, and from there the rest was history. "They're down...they're down..." She slumped against her box. "I got him..."
"What happened?" Quinn sounded very dazed. "What did it...how did I..."
"There's still the one left!" Nunez rose, and his pistol blared. "I'm going for the civvies. Quinn, get Richardson patched up and cover me!"
"Be careful!" Julie cried, as Quinn did indeed rise, shaking her head to clear it. She waved to her GREMLIN, and Julie gasped as medical nanobots showered over her mag-wound.
"Always." Nunez vaulted over the boxes, and his pistol roared as he moved. "Cover me!"
"You heard him!" Quinn checked Julie's wound herself, then accepted her drone's work and rose, rifle spitting bursts at the remaining Advent soldier. Julie made her way to one knee, taking aim and adding her own shots to the fray.
She prayed Jane and Mendoza were all right.
"Gotcha!" Pablo Nunez slid into cover with the Denmother and her family, pausing to slide a new cylinder into his revolver. "They're keeping the soldier pinned down. Extraction is over westward from here."
"Got it!" The Denmother plucked up a child who couldn't be older than four, then waved to the two men and the woman with her. "Come on! Let's get to safety!"
"Go!" Nunez waved them off, swapping for his rifle. He checked it, then quickly reloaded, watching the Denmother, the child, and both men scurry away, heads down. Quinn received them, helping them past the boxes and pulling them toward the camp's edge.
"Hey." Pablo turned and rapped the remaining woman's shoulder, a bit more sharply than he intended to. She jumped, twitching very nervously, and he did his best to smile. "You're covered, don't worry. We've got you."
"Reloading!" Julie shouted, ducking for cover. Quinn was still helping the others out. Nunez turned, sighting in on the trooper.
"Go!" he ordered, promptly forgetting about the recalcitrant woman. He fired blind, putting a shot through a bush in the soldier's vicinity just as incentive to keep his head down. The sharpshooter scanned the area, waiting for even the smallest flash of motion to key him into-
Glaaarg!
"What?" Pablo wondered, as he heard the thrashing, the moaning, the odd ripping noise from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. "Are you having a seizure-"
The woman was gone. Pablo's eyes went wide as a ten-foot lumbering thing rose behind him, its skin melting and rushing like putty, its eyes red and sunken into its domed hood of a face-
"What the hell is that?" he demanded, spinning to bring his rifle around. "Corporal-"
It lunged. Pablo hit the trigger, but his shot went wide, arcing past the creature's head. He scrambled to work the bolt, backing up as it reached out-
Gushing, flowing hands of putty and putrid stench seized the sharpshooter around the waist, and he screamed as the thing yanked him into its chest. Pablo thrashed, but he had nothing to brace on, and barely any air in his lungs as the creature's skin flowed and broke like mud, sucking him in. It poured up his nose, and after a minute, into his mouth when he screamed. He couldn't breathe...couldn't...
"Man down!" Corporal Quinn cried. "We just lost Nunez-"
Gallant slammed both hands down on the rail, creating a bang loud enough the entire bridge staff jumped. He shook.
"Mendoza's down, Nunez is down...Richardson is wounded..." Gallant hurled his cane across the bridge, and a tech ducked, covering his head as it clattered down beside him. "This is going to hell! This is a fucking disaster!"
"Menace, report in!" Bradford ordered. He swore when no one responded. "Sir, I think they're all busy-"
"Call Firebrand," Gallant ordered. "Have her...have her move in and..."
"And what?" Bradford demanded. "And what, Commander? Leave Alpha-seven to these things' mercy?"
"Our people are dying!" Gallant reminded him, at volume eleven.
"They're all our people!" Bradford shot back. "Tell them how to win this, why don't you?"
Gallant seethed. "They can't...their guns...that thing's just ignoring gunfire..."
"Sir, you can't panic," Bradford snapped. "The team needs you-"
"Comms, get me Richardson and Quinn." Gallant waved to Bradford. "Call Firebrand!"
"Sir, we can't just-"
"Are there any anti-air defenses set up in that area?" Gallant asked. "Radar? Missiles? Plasma?"
"No, sir," a tech replied, stony-faced. "There's nothing stopping her from coming in."
"Sir, you need to-"
"Call Firebrand!" Gallant touched his earpiece. "I never said I wanted an evac order."
"It's coming!" Julie unloaded every bullet she had, but the towering clay monster shrugged them off, even as its own essence sprayed. It couldn't possibly be unaffected, but it wasn't twitching, wasn't breaking stride as it lumbered her way...
"This is Avenger!" The Commander's voice was thick with rage and thick with worry. "Quinn, your drone!"
"My-" Aileen's eyes lit up. "Nessie, shock protocol!"
"Yes!" Julie shouted, as the GREMLIN obediently shot forward. The towering...thing...regarded it for a moment, almost quizzically. Then electricity burst from the GREMNLIN's emitters, and the alien shuddered and roared, twitching in place.
"Richardson, take out that goddamn trooper!" Gallant ordered, as she ducked incoming fire. "Forget the alien!"
"Forget the-" Julie set her teeth. "Sir, maybe I can melt it-"
"Forget the alien! That's a direct order, soldier!"
Julie swore. She grabbed for her amp. "Sir-"
"Do it!" Central chimed in. "Get the soldier, Richardson!"
"Fuck!" But she called on her power, and she ignored the hulking form not twenty feet from her, shaking off the aftereffects of the blast and the scattered fire from Quinn's assault rifle. Julie concentrated on her sensed image of the Adventer, focused on his mind and his weak points, and unleashed herself in a mad blast. Violet light filled the air...and the soldier screamed, clutching his head and stumbling from cover as psionic power ate him alive from the inside out, melting his bones and skin and scorching his mind.
His body tumbled, smoking from all openings.
"Got him," Julie snapped, before pausing as the clay monster loomed. She swallowed, grabbing for her rifle. "It's right on top of me-"
"Get out of there!" Gallant ordered. "Retreat, soldier!"
"I can't-" Julie skittered backward as the alien grabbed, smashing boxes aside like paperweights. She dove for cover as its other hand elongated, reaching for her with fingers open wide. The redhead screamed-
"Medium rare!"
The world shook as the Skyranger screamed by overhead, twin engines turning to hover position. Julie gasped as the backblast of exhaust slapped her, nearly shoving her back a half-dozen paces to her knees.
But what happened to her was nothing, because Firebrand twisted the engines to hang right over the towering clay monster...then gunned them both.
"Holy hell!" Quinn cried, as the Skyranger's engines vomited blue flame. Jet exhaust seared the ground, charring green grass black and boiling crates to slag. Julie covered her eyes, crying out in thanks when the corporal seized her and pulled her out of the way, the pair crashing down behind a fallen tree and shielding their eyes and ears, wincing as the engines shrieked and the alien roared in agony.
And when Firebrand lifted off, she left nothing but a burning puddle of brown goo in her wake.
"Order up," the pilot growled.
Jane stared down the barrel of an Advent mag rifle for the umpteenth time, and her teeth set as she almost felt the trooper pulling the trigger. Her fingers tightened on the lancer's arm.
Bang-bang-bang!
"Ah!" the lancer shrieked, as Jane threw it between her and danger, diving backward to avoid shots that ripped straight through the creature's armor and flesh. It staggered, and the trooper hesitated, raising a hand almost apologetically as Jane hit the ground.
She grabbed the first weapon she could find, and though the lancer ducked out of the way, Jane regardless ripped her sword from the ash-coated loam. She hurled it end-over-end across the clearing, hard and accurate enough that it drove into the trooper's chest and nailed him to a tree.
The lancer turned. She didn't have her baton, but she didn't need it. Two steps took her to her friend's corpse, and she ripped Jane's sword free one-handed. The Irishwoman skittered backward on all fours, grabbing the instant she thought she was close enough, feeling her hands wrap around rubber and leather.
"Donut!" shrieked the lancer, hurling Jane's sword. The Ranger drew Mendoza's from his back in a flash, and on one knee she slashed her own blade from the air, throwing out her shoulder from the force and speed of her turn. Her spinning blade cracked from the impact, and when it flew away into the trees, Jane winced to see it shatter in half on a rock.
The lancer lunged, sweeping her baton from the ground. Jane rose to meet her, Mendoza's sword in hand, and weapons locked.
Clang! Clang! Baton and sword spun through the air, ringing off each other in flashes of electric light. The forest echoed from the dinging and ringing, and Jane struggled to keep her footing, even as she watched her enemy waver as well. Exhaustion drove the Irishwoman on, and she launched herself onto the attack, heedless of her own defense. The lancer parried at every turn. Clang! Clang!
Jane scored its arm. It howled, then bashed her hip. Jane screamed, lightning coursing over her side, numbing her ribs. Blood soaked through her armor, but she didn't yield, didn't dare hesitate, as she threw herself back onto the attack. The creature met her, disengaged, swung low enough Jane had to jump, and came around for a high strike to catch her on the rise-
Jane's sword flashed. She cut the lancer's arm off at the elbow, and both the limb and the weapon soared away. Before her enemy could react, the Ranger twisted, driving Mendoza's sword into its chest and straight out the other side, stained yellow.
For a moment, they stood there, both gasping for breath.
"Bit...bit of old..." The lancer seized Mendoza's sword, heedless of the edge, and pulled herself forward. She snarled in Jane's face. "Bit of old vinegars-"
"Shut up!" Jane ripped her sword free, and in a flash she decapitated the hideous soldier. Her head sailed away, and the body tumbled a moment later.
Jane fell to her knees, driving Mendoza's sword into the ground for support.
"Menace...this is Central." He was tired, he was worn...and he was shocked. "All hostiles are down. The AO is secure."
Jane didn't respond. She didn't pull the sword up either. Instead, she lay back against a tree, gasping for breath and clutching her side.
Gently, she reached out to Mendoza's broken corpse, and she swept his eyes shut.
Jane Kelly wept, as ashes fell.
Author's Note 14: Mother****ing STUN LANCERS
Exactly whose idea it was to give an early-game Advent unit a long movement range, a high dodge stat, better HP than average troopers, a high damage scale(high enough to entirely reasonably one-hit kill soldiers of its equivalent tech level) on a MELEE attack(which can be used after dashing and is by nature highly accurate), a stun chance on attack, and the ability for its attacks to randomly inflict unconscious on your soldiers, which cannot be defended against at all with any equipment, and can only be counteracted if you happen to have brought along a Specialist with Revival Protocol(which has only one use per mission), deserves to be shot. And missed, because that's XCOM, baby, but that's the thought.
In a game with alien fist-punching brutes the size of cars, psionic elders merged with human bodies, early-game mind-controlling low-tier mooks, giant pokeballs of psionic death, and massive chicken walkers with Pacific Rim plasma cannons, the lowly stun lancer will always be my most hated(and feared, I must admit) unit. Nothing tops them. I mean, I nickname Archons "Mary Sues" but that's just because they're damn near impossible to hit. They're not super dangerous on offense, especially if you're like me and set them on fire on sight. The Archon King is different, but we'll talk about him in a later note.
Until then, Vigilo Confido.