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"We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves."
~Tom Robbins
Chapter Nineteen: Dragons
"Vahlen created a Viper King?" Gallant's eye twitched. "Oh, that's lovely. That's exactly what we needed."
"Let's not get hasty here," Shen urged. "It's not an Advent soldier, is it? Maybe it isn't hostile?"
Gallant gave her a look. Half the bridge staff did too, and the Chief went beet-red.
"Well...it's not impossible." She scowled. "I'm not stupid. Someone had to suggest it, that's all."
"It's an alien," Gallant snapped.
"So is Betos." That was a far more eloquent and reasonable reply than he'd expected. The Commander fumed at the unfairness of his life.
"Easy, people." That was Bradford, and Gallant clenched his teeth, watching the XO's icon on the holodisplay. "And easy there to you, too. We aren't here to cause trouble."
Gallant clutched the railing, waiting with bated breath. He ground his teeth together for the longest second of his life.
And then...
Bang!
"It's got a Bolt Caster!" Aileen Quinn sounded personally affronted, and the icons in the lab scattered to the four winds. "Shots fired!"
"More contacts approaching from below!" Tygan warned. "Menace, I believe Gamma is calling them psionicly-"
"Take it out!" Bradford ordered. Gallant took a breath.
"Right," he muttered, before straightening and touching his earpiece. "Engage the enemy, Central. Weapons free."
Boom!
Jane Kelly swore when her first shot, fired from the hip, ripped past Gamma's head. It shrieked, and so did she when it lunged in her direction.
"Back!" She worked the pump, and this next shot hit. The shockwave of recoil went up her arms in a flash, and buckshot scattered on the King's armor. It didn't seem much impeded, and Jane gasped as it bore down on her, twisting around and dropping its arms to the floor-
Wham!
That tail made for one hell of a club, and Jane flipped over twice in the air, crashing straight through the remains of that archon's hologram and containment unit. She yelped as glass cut open the backs of her hands and tried to punch through her thick boots.
"Jane!" Aileen appeared over her, even as most sounds were drowned out by vicious gunfire. Bradford opened up on full auto with Cameron at his side, and the King had to flee their barrage, slithering behind a tall support column.
"Watch the sides!" Sophie opened up in the direction of the main door, and her fire eviscerated a neonate. David's machinegun roared, but Jane could see neither him nor his target.
"Thanks." She took Aileen's hand, letting her friend pull her up. "Where's my shotgun?"
"Over there!" The medic racked the bolt on her crossbow from hell. "I'll cover you! Get it!"
Jane clapped her shoulder, then the brunette dove into the mess, heedless of bloody hands. She grabbed the hilt of her axe, though she prayed she wouldn't need it before she could-
"Son of a bitch!" David crashed through Jane's immediate area, a neonate wrapped around him with jaws snapping. The Aussie had one hand free, though, and he caught the beast by the throat, snarling words the Irishwoman had never heard and couldn't translate.
"Hold him!" She drew her axe in a flash, setting up her swing. A bolt zipped past her, and she wondered if it was Aileen covering her or a neonate who couldn't shoot for shit.
"Flank him!" Central ordered, laying down fire. Cameron said something in acknowledgment, before skittering for the King's open right side-
It shrieked. It shrieked and reared, braving Bradford's fire. Bullets skittered off its armor, and its jaws opened for one long instant-
"Jesus Christ!" Jane staggered as a cold blue wave rippled through the room. She still swung with her axe, of course, and the neonate strangling her pet machinegunner lost all interest in being a pain in the ass when his head and body flew two different ways. But the chill still tore into her with pins and needles and freaking sword-points, punching through her armor and running up her spine like little men with icy feet. It was even colder than the Arctic...
"Help!" That was all Cameron managed to get off, as liquid sprayed from the creature's mouth. This wasn't venom, though, and the blue substance wrapped around the Canadian and...and...
"Liquid nitrogen!" Jane was no one's scientist, but even she thought that sounded fairly stupid after half a second's reflection. Maybe she needed to hit the library and talk to Tygan or his assistants, but no creature could breathe liquid nitrogen...could they?
However it had done it, the Viper King's liquid breath had frozen Cameron and Bradford into solid statues, and Jane's mouth went dry as its evil eyes turned to her and David.
"Come on!" Elena scurried through the trees, only pausing to glance behind her and make sure Liang and Mox were still following. "We're less than three clicks from the rendezvous point."
"We will make it," Mox assured her, eyes hard with determination. "Julie will make it."
"I hope." Elena didn't like how still the psionic was. "She needs a medic. I'm not trained for this."
"Are your friends?" Liang asked, as the motly group resumed their wild limp for freedom.
"Raj at least. Perhaps Mordecai too." Elena splashed into a little brook, but this one was only to cross. "Maybe if we-"
"Contact!" Mox shouted, and Elena spun. She saw them too, and Mox unloaded with Julie's rifle in the same instant Elena snapped her vektor up one-handed.
Crack! Bang-bang!
"Butts!" screamed the first soldier, even as bullets ventilated him. His companion ducked behind a tree, and Elena knew there had to be more.
"Mox, can you walk?" She couldn't work the bolt one-handed, and could only duck for cover.
"I can do whatever is required." The Skirmisher tested his footing for a moment, and Liang slipped out from under his arm, slinging her chaingun out in a flash. The soldier popped up to put a shot into someone's back, and-
Ratta-tatta-tatta!
"Take Julie." Elena proffered the deadweight, and Mox grimaced as he took her. He attempted an experimental step.
"I can carry her," he informed her. "But probably not far, not with any kind of speed."
"We'll worry about that part later." Elena worked the bolt now. "Liang!"
"Outrider?" She slipped behind her own tree as red mag-bolts seared in. "There's at least four of them back there now. They've got to be calling for reinforcements or an air strike-"
"Block the path and cover the rear!" Elena rose. "I'll take point with Mox in the center!"
"You want me to-"
"Do it!" Elena repeated, before glancing down her scope, selecting a target, and punching a hole through his skull in the span of a second.
"Yes, ma'am!" Liang grabbed for the other weapon on her back, and she shoved a single red charge down its open mouth. "Cover me!"
Crack! Crack! Elena let her vektor do the responding for her, though she worriedly counted five Advent left, even with the one she'd killed.
"This had better work," she muttered, teeth clenched, "or this will be the shortest rescue in history."
Chump! It was a very strange noise, compared to gunfire. The propellant charge in Liang's grenade launcher sounded too...bouncy, like the device worked on compressed air or springs. For all Elena knew, it could - she had hardly trained in its use or assembly.
And, of course, all that mattered at this moment was that it did work, and whether it worked on compressed air, springs, or pixie dust, the grenade launcher hurled a red, beeping explosive charge down the path to the junction Advent had occupied.
Elena fondly imagined she heard someone scream "eat pizza, cool!" in the instant between landing and detonation.
Fwoom!
The explosive blast was enough to fling several lifeless corpses, But more powerful and more dangerous was the napalm inside the charge that served to ignite a raging firestorm on the path. Soldiers shrieked and burned, and the flames ate into old trees and dead wood, rapidly spreading and issuing smoke.
"Yes!" Liang cried, before grabbing for her gun. "That's for Yue!"
"Move!" Elena couldn't admire the lovely firestorm, not as aware as she was of Mox and Julie's injuries. Vektor in hand, she turned for the path ahead.
There might actually be a chance of getting out of here alive, she thought, as the fire cooked off someone's grenades behind her. But let's not get cocky yet.
"Shit!" Jane paired that cry with action, and she flung her axe almost without thinking. The Viper King had only a moment to roar threateningly before the blade cut into its shoulder, striking by luck outside of the armored chest, and it shrieked in something altogether different as yellow dripped for the ground.
"That's right!" David opened fire, and Jane covered her ears, diving for her fallen shotgun, now half-buried under the weight of the Australian's former attacker. She landed short, and desperately the Ranger crawled on hands and knees, ripping the gun free by its butt and rolling onto her back-
Hiss!
Boom! Jane didn't like people looming over her and shouting at the best of times, and the neonate that had tested her patience found that out the hard way. It was probably dead before it realized she'd fired, since half of its body more or less disintegrated on impact.
"It's running!" David cried, before letting up his fire. He reached down for Jane, but she rather studiously clambered up without him.
"Running?" she demanded, gun raised. "Where to?"
"Back there, I think-" David grabbed her by the back of her shirt, and Jane choked as he yanked so hard her collar dug into her throat. She stumbled three paces backward...and a bolt hissed through the space her chest had occupied.
"Jackass!" Aileen cried, and then her Bolt Caster went off. A hole one foot in diameter appeared in the center of its chest, and the creature looked absolutely dumbfounded. It paused to glance down at itself through very cloudy eyes, staying upright with surprising strength and grace for an animal that no longer had a heart or lungs. It still looked shocked when it finally realized it was dead and dropped.
"Central!" Jane scurried to the frozen XO's side, swearing as she took him in. "He's sealed up tight. I don't know what to-"
"Break the ice, dammit," David ordered, as he reloaded. Aileen worked the Bolt Caster for a moment, and a new evil warhead popped out of its muzzle, ready for expulsion. Jane swallowed.
"Won't that shatter him-"
"This ain't a cartoon." David scoffed. "Just 'cause he's coated in it doesn't mean he's made of it all of a sudden, stupid!"
"I'm not stupid, you-"
"Watch it, lovebirds!" Aileen's drone shot forward, and Jane whirled as she heard electricity spit. She brought her shotgun up too, taking in close to half a dozen neonates forming up on the far end of the room.
"Are these all the King's offspring?" she wondered, before blowing two of them to Kingdom Come in three shots. Hissing, steaming cartridges ejected from the gun and landed around her feet. "What a man!"
"Where the hell is he?" Aileen cried.
As if in answer, Jane heard the King shriek.
"It's moving fast, sir," the tech cried. "Commander, it's moving around the right flank-"
"Right side!" Gallant cried into his earpiece. "The King's on the right-"
"Busy!" Jane Kelly snapped, without proper deference to her Commander. Gallant seethed.
"Where the hell is Central?" he demanded, switching tacks. "John-"
"Central's frozen up, sir!" Aileen Quinn replied. "Some kind of ice breath!"
"Ice breath?" Gallant mumbled. "Sure. Ice breath." He inhaled sharply. "Break the ice. Get Central out of there."
"Sir, we're kind of busy!" Jane broke off, and Gallant heard her gun go off at least twice. "Later!"
Gallant's fists clenched. "Damn it, sergeant, you get over there and free him! That's a direct order!"
"Sir...screw you!" That was punctuated by something loud exploding.
A hush settled over the bridge, and Gallant's nostrils flared. Red tinted his vision, and he reached up for his earpiece-
"We've got the King on scanners!" Tygan cried, and Gallant froze halfway through beginning the dressing-down of Kelly's life. "Pressing in hard and fast!"
"On whom?" Gallant demanded. "Where is it?"
Bang! Bang-bang!
"Tango down," Sophie Weber snapped, pausing to hit the magazine release and reach for a reload. In three seconds she had the new mag in place, despite her fumbling hands. She knew guns like she knew her blonde locks, but this was different than the Black Forest community she'd been raised in. Sophie had killed her first looter when she was ten, her first Advent at fifteen, and her first alien two years later...but this was more than that. So much more.
Vipers pouring up from the floor and the walls, and that...thing leading them...
Boom! Ratta-tatta-tatta! Bang! That was the rest of the squad, and Sophie hurried around the big archon container, gun at the ready. While her friends fought in the open space, she was working to flank around the neonates. If she could open up on them from behind...clear them out a bit-
Hiss!
Sophie, to her credit, didn't freeze. She didn't have time, and the hard-boiled survival instincts bred into anyone who'd grown up in a haven brought her around with blinding speed. She got her gun up, too, and her eye to the sight, and before her heartbeat had skipped or her conscious mind had realized what was bearing down on her, she'd even squeezed the trigger.
Unfortunately, she'd also missed.
"Mein gott-"
That was all she got out, as hands with three long fingers that tapered into claws seized her. One wrapped around her throat, the other drove into her shoulder, and both were freezing. Sophie screamed as claws went in her, and red came out-
Cold wafted her face, and her scream muffled as ice formed over her from eyebrows down. But she could still hurt, and she could still see through the hazy frost.
She could see the Viper King's jaws open, and she couldn't close her eyes as its fangs drove into her head.
Her shriek was soundless.
Splash, splash!
"Huh..." She groaned, as the world twisted and shook...
"Did we lose them?" Liang cried, from somewhere out of sight. Water gurgled, and Julie Richardson was very certain she heard people splashing in it.
"I don't know. But this is the river." Elena paused there, as if considering. "Come on! Raj and Mordecai are down this way. We leave the water and push into the rocks."
"What...what happened?" Julie's throat was dry. "Can I have some water?"
"Julie?" That was Mox, and he hesitated for a moment. "You should rest."
"Yeah, probably." It was amazing how luridly clear everything was. The redhead coughed, reaching for her stomach. "Are you...carrying me?"
"You were shot."
"Oh. Poo." Julie sighed. "That sucks." The psi-op contemplated for a moment. "Can I confide in you?"
"Julie-"
"I think I'm high off my ass," she observed, watching the water form kaleidoscope patters in the wake of the point man's footsteps. "Am I high?"
"She's awake," Mox observed. "Outrider-"
"I gave her all the painkillers and sedatives I had." Elena sounded worried. Why? Julie wasn't really in any position to judge.
"Can I please have some water?" she repeated, reaching down for it. "It looks cold."
"Elena, she's going to die." Julie wondered who Liang was talking about. "We can't just be carrying her all over India."
"We won't have to for long. Raj can look at her once we're safe."
"Who, me?" Julie frowned. "I feel fine. I just want a drink."
"You're bleeding all over Mox's shoulder."
"Well, that's just the time of the month-"
"Leaving the river." Elena didn't sound particularly lenient, and Julie stewed.
"Bye, water." She waved. "I miss you."
"Come on." Mox patted her shoulder. "We're not going to be moving much longer."
"Your shoulder kind of hurts my chest," Julie admitted. "I'm not comfortable."
"Just hang in there," Liang encouraged. "You're going to be all right. We promise."
"We do." Elena rounded a bend in the trail. "We're just going to..."
"Hm?" Julie glanced ahead...and paused when she saw what Elena had. "Oh. Poo."
"Mor Balaten," ordered the Advent officer at the head of what must have been a dozen soldiers and purifiers, with two sectoids and a viper in support. "Donut!"
"Sophie!" Jane spun, bringing her shotgun to bear on a small gap between containment units. She started for the other side, swearing under her breath. "If you've hurt her, you bastard-"
She made it two steps.
Hiss!
"Oh, fuck!" Jane tumbled as the King burst from cover, ignoring David and Aileen battling its neonate minions. Blood ran from its jaws, and in that instant the Irishwoman knew Sophie was dead.
"Son of a bitch-" But she only managed to get to one knee and block desperately, using her shotgun to parry overhead attacks. Gamma used its Bolt Caster as a club, battering madly at Jane's defense until she was sure her trusty firearm was going to break.
But it didn't, and Jane finally managed to knock the King's weapon away and bring hers to bear.
Boom!
Armor or not, a full load of buckshot at point blank range is something no one can walk off. The King was no different, and it stumbled from the hit, clutching its dented chestpiece. Emboldened, Jane worked the pump and-
Click.
"Shit-" Jane cut herself off then, and without a word she threw her gun away, grabbing for the axes over her shoulder. Left-handed she drew the first one, and while the Viper was still recoiling she threw the weapon straight into its midsection.
That seemed to piss it off, and it lunged. Jane got her other axe out in time, but her first strike went wide, and that gave Gamma its opening. Icy fingers seized her, and Jane screamed as she found herself flung halfway across the chamber. She hit the far wall spine-first with a bang that could probably be heard on the Avenger, and then she slid to her hands and knees, gasping for breath-
And Gamma seized her, slithering up out of nowhere and baring its fangs. It shrieked, and Jane's eyes widened-
"Stop touching her!"
Crack!
The King convulsed. It thrashed and howled as electricity bore over its body, and Jane shielded her eyes, skittering off for cover near Bradford and Cameron. She got a good look at Aileen, lowering the Bolt Caster with an expression of absolute murder.
Then David hit Gamma from behind with his machinegun butt, and the creature regained its senses. It whirled, and the Australian yelped as fangs snapped for his head.
"Stupid...lizard!" he howled, as it drove him back into the rock wall of the cavern. He ducked as it slashed, ripping stones apart with its wicked talons.
Jane had none of her weapons. She'd thrown one axe, lost the other one, and her shotgun(empty) lay halfway across the chamber.
But that was all right, because when she scrambled to her feet and turned, she reached out and seized the long protruding hilt from Bradford's back.
Glamdring burst from the ice with a metallic shing, responding to Jane and gleaming in the light. Gamma hesitated at the noise, and it turned just in time to see the Ranger lunge his way. Glamdring's point led her on, and by luck or skill or the will of a God she didn't believe in, Jane found her appropriated blade's tip driving straight into Gamma's left eye.
The shriek was unbelievable. Jane screamed as it bowled her over, throwing her on the ground. David collapsed too, and Aileen covered her ears. Gamma covered its face, howling agony and freezing half the ceiling with that wicked ice spit, yellow blood leaking between its long fingers.
Jane still had Glamdring, and she took it in both hands, forcing her way up to one knee with as much game determination as she could muster. The King gave her a long, searching look.
And then it screamed again, much shriller and less agonized, and Jane clutched her head. Purple light filled the world, and wind hissed and ripped, tugging at her clothes and snapping up floating papers and notes that must have been Vahlen's-
"It's opening some sort of psionic gateway!" Tygan cried. "I cannot fathom why Vahlen would have allowed it to retain this capability-"
"Kill it! Before it gets away!" That was bloody easy for Gallant to say, back on the ship. Jane nearly told him as much, but at the last second, she supposed she was already in enough shit with the old man.
So instead, she slashed, and instead, she missed. Instead-
"Fuck!" Jane collapsed on her hands and knees as those ice-cold talons ripped furrows down her flank. She half-expected fangs to follow, but the King clearly had no time for her. Even as the Ranger rolled over on her good side, struggling to inch away from her enemy and get purchase to rise, it shot for the whirling violet vortex at the heart of the chamber. Light pulsed, and Jane covered her eyes-
Bang!
"It's gone!" David shouted. "It got away!"
"Oh, thank God." Jane struggled to her feet, coughing and grabbing for Bradford's sword. "The neonates?"
"I'm not detecting any more life signs in that area," Tygan said. "Human...or otherwise."
"Good." Jane stumbled over to the statues in the center of the chamber, and she raised Glamdring. "Hang on, Cameron!"
The ice shattered in one go when she brought her swordhilt down on the rookie's shoulder. He gasped, and only Aileen's lunge kept him from hitting the ground. He shivered and his teeth chattered, and from the blue of his fingers and nose, Jane suspected he might have already contracted frostbite.
"Nessie, medical detail," Aileen ordered. "Come on, Rogers. Stay with me. It's going to be okay, I promise." She looked around. "David, find me something warm. A heater, or something to build a fire."
"Right." The Aussie hesitated. "Jane, your side-"
"Later." She ignored David, hurrying to Bradford to repeat her performance, free hand coming away from her ribs bloody.
Crack! Crack!
"Did it get away?" Bradford ripped one arm free from the ice the instant it broke enough, and then he burst forth with two great strides, eyes hard as he scanned the room. "It got away, didn't it?"
"Sir." Jane sank to one knee, teeth gritted. She offered the blade. "Yours. Sir."
"Right." Bradford took it. He glanced to Rogers and his minders, then Jane. "Sorry, sergeant. I need you on your feet."
"My pleasure. Sir." She groaned, trying not to show how grateful she was when he offered his hand. "Why?"
"We need to sweep the place for drives and docs," Bradford ordered. "Anything that could be of use. I bet we'll see our new friend again." He eyed Kelly. "Then we call Firebrand and go back to the Avenger. And then..."
"Oh. You heard." Jane scoffed. "Not a problem for now, is it, sir?"
"...no. Not for now." Bradford turned away. "You skate thin ice, Kelly. I hope you didn't just break it." He paused by Rogers for a moment. "You two keep him warm. We'll bring Weber with us when we call Firebrand."
Elena swallowed as she beheld the company facing her. How they'd discovered her extraction plan was anyone's guess. Maybe that was the answer right there: a lucky guess. Elena liked that answer: there was a reason they called it dumb luck.
"Mor balaten," seethed the officer, approaching her with the lanky, unhurried stride of a man who knew he held all the cards. Elena hated his guts.
"What's he saying?" Julie wondered. "What's a balaten? Why does he want more? Doesn't he have enough?" She coughed. "How many balatens does one man need? Can't a girl keep hers?"
Elena almost shot the officer. She knew Liang would open fire, and Mox would drop Julie in a safe place so he could engage with her rifle. They could take quite a few of them, since they were standing in the open like that.
But Elena's company was in the open too, and whereas she'd gladly have gone to a fighting end herself - and Liang certainly would have been cheery to join her, along with Mox - she couldn't condemn Julie to death so callously. She had to try and keep the psi-op alive, and maybe if Advent thought they could learn something from her, they'd stabilize her. Gallant could organize a better-fated rescue mission then.
Elena's own potential survival was never a factor in her decision.
Slowly, she lowered her vektor to the ground. She heard Liang growl, but the Grenadier had obviously done the same calculations and come to the same conclusion. Julie's rifle fell from Mox's grip.
"Eat pizza, cool." The officer waved. "Call a taxi!"
Elena kept her hands behind her head when two soldiers seized her. The rest of the officer's detail grabbed Liang and Mox and Julie, and for a moment, they were all patted down and searched. The Reaper waited until her captors were satisfied, and offered no resistance when they flung her to her knees in the dirt. A moment later, Liang and Mox landed at her right, and Julie was roughly dropped beyond them.
She looked so weak...
"She's going to die," Liang snapped. "Do you have a medic?"
"Mor balaten," the officer replied, turning away. Liang ground her teeth.
"She's been shot, you bastard!"
"Donut!" One of the soldiers hit her with the butt of Julie's rifle. Liang spat blood, while Mox growled.
Elena just frowned, staring into the trees. It had to have been the wind...
There was no wind.
"Bit of old vinegars." The officer waved, and a soldier loomed, drawing his rifle. The sectoids chittered to themselves, and the viper hissed with amusement. Elena swallowed.
"Well, at least we die quickly," Liang mused, as the soldier took aim at Julie. For just a moment, Elena was afraid.
Then she resolved what it was she'd seen, and her stomach muscles clenched in an altogether different way.
Pow!
It was a strange noise. It wasn't the bang of a rifle, or the boom of a shotgun. It wasn't loud and deep like a heavy weapon. If anything, it sounded...electronic. A pulse of something, beating through the air in a narrow lance, moving faster than the eye could track.
A pulse of red light that took the soldier in the back of the head, boiling his brains in a flash.
"What the-"
Elena jumped to her feet, ignoring Liang. She seized Julie's rifle from the nearest soldier, and in a heartbeat she heard her Grenadier and even Mox in his weakened state lunging for the nearest weapons. The alien patrol whirled on the trees-
Pew! Pew! Pew! More of those red beams burst from the shadows, ripping into Advent and aliens alike with callous precision. They boiled flesh and burned through armor, filling the clearing with the acrid tang of charred meat.
"Gotcha!" Elena threw her victim down, and a moment later she poured fire from the assault rifle into his chest. He thrashed, and she vaguely heard her vektor crack and the bolt work from further back in her line. She turned to fire at the first purifier she saw, turning his weapon on the treeline, and before she could open up she saw Mox with Julie's amp in hand, tackling the officer and proceeding to use the weapon as a bludgeon with savage effectiveness.
Someone hit the purifier before she could. It screamed as purple light seared around its head, driving knives in its ears and eyes. Elena actually winced as the thing fell, thrashing wildly and pathetically.
Then the viper collapsed overtop the two sectoids, riddled by rapid beam fire...and there were abruptly no more hostiles.
"...is this a good turn or bad?" Julie asked, from where Mox knelt over her, bloody amp discarded. Elena and Liang traded a glance.
They melted from the trees. There were six of them, dressed the same: thick, padded armor that seemed to be made from alien alloys wrapped around limbs and torsos like some kind of carapace, mottled green to blend in with the trees. All their weapons looked like family, with matching boxy designs with visible red-glowing power cores and running coolant lines, but Elena was sure the blond man's was a sniper rifle, with its longer barrel and high-powered targeting scope. And those two looming from the center had to be carrying heavy weapon variants with multiple barrels and a rotary design.
She warily eyed the scarred, tanned woman who took what seemed to be a very firm second-place position behind one of the heavies. She was physically unimposing, with her small frame and bob haircut...but Elena had only to glance at Julie's eyes to see the underlying similarity between the women. If anything, this newcomer's purple was deeper and more vibrant than Julie's...or any other Gifted Elena had ever seen.
"You serve XCOM," said the heavy in front, and Elena immediately pegged him as the leader. No one with any doubt as to his right to speak would use that tone of voice with her.
"I am a-"
"I know what you are, Reaper." He didn't sound very intimidated either. "You are Volk's attaché with XCOM. Granted when the organization rose from the ashes."
"Please." That was Liang, and though Elena didn't break eye contact with the newcomers' leader, she knew the woman had to be kneeling with Julie in her arms. "Do you have a medic? She's been shot. She's going to die."
That gave them pause. The man and woman off to the side, so alike in the face they had to be siblings, gave each other aside glances. The blond sniper loomed, pursing his lips. The psionic grimaced. The other heavy sighed, pausing for a drink from a hip flask. The motion revealed the Argentinean flag on the back of his armor.
And their leader didn't flinch. Elena stared him down.
"Go." He waved, and the psionic detached herself from his side. Elena almost sighed with relief when she knelt over Julie, producing a medkit and quickly pulling open her wound.
"I will patch her up," the woman said, with a musical accent. "You'll be on your way soon. Je promets."
"Who are you?" Elena narrowed her eyes. "Why help us?"
"We're just like you." A smile might have touched the leader's lips at that. "We are allies." He turned away. "We will create a diversion down south. The aliens will pursue us, and you will be clear to escape to your contacts deeper in the rocks." He waved, and the four unoccupied soldiers in his unit started into the trees. Elena counted two Egyptians and an American in addition to the Argentinean.
But what took her breath away was the insignia under the flags.
"Yes, Reaper." The heavy chuckled. "We are XCOM. The true XCOM."
"Go." The medic/psionic rose, reclaiming her rifle. "Your friend will survive until you can get her to safety. Be gentle with her and ensure she gets something to drink as soon as possible."
"Thank you," Mox muttered. The medic might have smiled.
Then she was off after her fellows, and Elena ground her teeth together. She took half a step after the leader, and she paused when he turned to glare over his shoulder.
"You want to know more."
"Yes. And you'll tell me." Elena clutched the rifle tightly. "Who are you?"
The scar over his eye tightened as he smiled. "Very well, Reaper. Your masters will know me as Chilong."
Then he turned for the trees, leaving Elena and her team standing alone in a sea of smoldering corpses.
Author's Note 19: No I Will Not Explain
*evil cackle*
I've been waiting to drop this on you since the beginning of this fanfic. Most of the late twists are the first things I figure out when writing, and the how-to is the big deal. Mendoza's death, for example, was the first thing I decided about him. Well, that and the fact that he needed to be set up as if he had a subplot that mattered and then get killed almost at random, in the most nondramatic fashion possible. Just like one of the first things I decided when assembling the outline was that this was going to happen.
No explanations. No apologies. Stick along for the ride - it gets wild from here on out.
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.