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"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."
~Mahatma Gandhi
Chapter Forty-three: Under the Gun
Aileen Quinn dove for cover, swearing in a wild stream of abandoned syllables. Red fire from that turret ripped up the ground where she'd been standing, and it traced over a fuel tank she'd just barely recognized in time to not use for cover-
Ka-boom! The blast shook the earth and filled the sky with smoke, and Aileen yelped as shrapnel cut the side of her neck. She never lost her grip on the Bolt Caster, though, and she brought it up as, from the darkness, a viper charged. It hissed and snarled, bringing its head back to prepare its poison spit-
Blam! The bolt ripped its head clean off its shoulders, and green burst up along with yellow. The mixed display flowed over those...those venom glands, Aileen supposed, dripping off onto the permacrete of the yard while the viper's body still stood upright, as if it were calling bullshit on a sudden loss of cranial command.
"This piece of shit-" Aileen fumbled the reload, and she devolved into an even more obscene suggestion involving her weapon and Doctor Vahlen. She cried out when the earth rumbled again, this time from Queen Kong over there doing a flying leap in Mox's general direction. The Skirmisher's grapple went off, and Aileen hoped he'd gotten to a good firing position. Sure enough, yellow traces arced out from a watchtower a moment later.
"Got it!" Aileen brought her weapon back up even as the smoke cleared. The turret twitched, bearing down on her, and for a heartbeat there was a race between flesh and motors to see who was quicker on the draw.
Then the turret blew apart as the magnetically-accelerated bolt punched through its armor like paper, tearing its central processing unit out the far side. What was left of the emplacement self-destructed like the rest of the alien gear, and Aileen heard Dragunova swear in Russian.
"Watch your fire!" she called. Aileen didn't bother to shoot back her perfectly logical counterarguments about how she hadn't a clue where the Reaper had vanished to.
She didn't bother because the Queen burst from the ash cloud at that moment, roaring like a dinosaur of old, and Aileen had to scream and dive before she got turned into an Irish pancake. Fists drove into the yard, and metal accelerators drove in around them like piledrivers. Permacrete cracked and chips turned to shrapnel, scouring the air and Aileen's back. She thanked God and the Shens for her Predator armor...and she wondered whether it would accomplish jack shit if she took one of those punches to the chest like MacLeod had.
"Come on, ugly!" Aileen cried, though her knees knocked. She snapped a new bolt into place. "Nessie, tase the bitch!"
Her drone arced in with an obedient beep or two. Electricity arced out and over the Queen's arms, playing hell with her mechanical assistance. The beast roared, spraying spittle like a dragon's fire.
Then Aileen hit the trigger, and her bolt tore right into its chest.
"What the-" She cut herself off as the monster howled, crashing to its hands and knees. It shook its head dazedly while electricity coursed over its limbs. Aileen waved to the tower. "Mox! Light her up!"
"It will be done!" And then the bullpup proved him a man...soldier of his word. The Queen moaned almost pitifully under the fire, while Aileen fought simply to reload-
She thought she heard footsteps in the instant before-
Wham!
Everything went dark.
"Quinn's down!" That was Saleh, and Gallant's opinion of the Saudi went up when heard not a shred - not a shred - of panic in his methodical tone. "Anyone see what hit her?"
"That bitch!" Jane seized the rail in both hands, and furious fire boiled up in her eyes. "It had to be the purple skank-"
"Is she alive, Menace?" Gallant demanded. He ignored the gasp from over his shoulder, save to wonder if he had to order the Irishwoman on his bridge thrown into a cell so he could concentrate.
"Seems that way, Avenger," Nui Tashiro finally reported. The holodisplay flashed in tune with the gun reports that echoed through her com. Gallant bared his teeth as he watched a pair of Advent soldiers fold up before they could reach safe firing positions. "We've got more hostiles coming out of the facility. They're fully roused and ready now."
"Roger that, one-five." Bradford glanced up to Gallant, then back at the display. "Outrider, get your ass down to Quinn and see if you can get her back up."
"God," Gallant growled, as he watched the ensuing chaos of war-ballet, "I hope Rogers and Liang are having better luck than us."
Wham! Wham! Those were good punches, and unfortunately they were incoming ones. Cameron Rogers cried out and tumbled back overtop of the stun lancer he'd already taken out, blood running from his mouth and nose. The officer vaulted after him, and he barely had time to weave sideways before her next strike would have made a dent between his eyes. He seized her arm, stuck his leg out to trip up the soldier trying to get around the sudden roadblock, and then twisted sharply, trying to snap any joint he could find.
"Damn it!" Cameron flew when the APC jerked. The driver swerved hard, flinging all the fighters to their faces and backs without seeming to care. The man trying to reach the top gun yelped, hanging on to the ladder for dear life. It felt like the armored vehicle flipped a U in the middle of the road.
Liang's car shot by, but she was just as fast on the uptake as Cameron could ask for. She came back around in a hurry, engine roaring almost as loud as the APC's guttural thunder. Even when the escort car's passenger opened up with long bursts of red mag-fire, Liang didn't hesitate to hit the gas and close the distance.
Cameron got to one knee. That was the best anyone could hope for, because the APC driver thought it was a good idea to take his baby tank into the narrow back roads rather than hang on the wider main thoroughfares. Even as the escort fell into place between them and Liang, Cameron had to throw himself to the other side of the narrow walkway to avoid getting a helmet bashed into his face. The officer had ripped it from the lancer's head, and she wielded it two-handed like a rock. Cameron ducked another swing, then caught the improvised weapon, lashing out and driving his elbow into the alien-lover's cheek hard enough she hit the deck with a shout about toucans.
On came the soldiers. Cameron cried out as one tackled him by the shoulders, taking him down right overtop of the Lady in Red. The third Adventer piled on, but not before Cameron bashed the back of his head into the soldier's nose, right under his helmet. The trooper lost his grip, and Cameron was able to pull back and snap his foot up into number three's crotch.
No matter what genetic modifications the aliens were capable of, that would remain the principle nerve center of any human's lower body. Not even the Elders with all their science could have prevented the wild shriek the Adventer let out before he crumpled up into the fetal position. Cameron scrambled up, bracing on his seat and making sure to kick the asshole in the back of the head in the doing. He seized the stun lancer's fallen baton.
"Pizza!" screamed the driver. "Eat pizza, bro!"
"Bit of old vinegars!" the wannabe gunner replied, gamely throwing the top hatch open. He grabbed for the outside of the vehicle-
Cameron threw. The baton caught the soldier in the leg, ripping right through his armor, and he shrieked. He nearly fell from his perch, too, as he clutched at the wound and its gushing, pulsing flow of arterial blood. More importantly, it delayed him from reaching the heavy cannon for just a moment. Hopefully long enough for-
Smash! Cameron spared a glance for that, and he nearly whooped. How, he didn't know, but Liang had swerved around the escort car and proceeded to smash it straight into a dumpster. The vehicle practically upended, spewing ragdoll-like soldier bodies into the street, where the Grenadier proceeded to cheerfully drive right over them. Her engine roared, and Cameron could almost imagine the smirk under her bandana as she pushed the pedal to the floor-
Wham! The officer drove his head into the far wall in his moment of inattention. Cameron swore, bracing hard just in time to prevent a second impact.
His veins flushed with ice when he heard the leather-scrape of someone drawing a pistol.
"Copy, Central." Blam!
The sectoid went down with a chittering wail, ventilated through its shoulder and out the side of its skull. From her crouched firing position, Elena Dragunova paused to slide a new clip into her temnotic rifle. She hurried from the shadows of the yard, listening with a bit of respect to the sounds of Meysam and his friends engaging the Advent garrison. The Berserker Queen was still down, lingering on all fours after Aileen's shot, but Elena still didn't like the odds. The alerted garrison against a small strike team? Their only chance was to get someone on the inside who could lay the charges before an organized retreat got them all to safety.
Under other circumstances, Elena would be doing just that. But she had direct orders, and Aileen was still lying in a heap over in the yard corner.
Blam! Her rifle spoke again on the way over, claiming an officer directing fire onto Meysam. A moment later, the sharpshooter cut loose with the Shadowkeeper, blowing a trooper's brains out and forcing his friends to take cover. Elena approved heartily of his gusto, if not necessarily of his accuracy.
"Lieutenant?" She carefully checked for a concealed bomb under Aileen, but there didn't seem to be anything. Elena pushed the blonde onto her back. "Lieutenant, speak to me!"
"Uh?" Aileen managed. Elena checked her condition with a quick backhand.
"Fuck!" Aileen jumped, clutching at her now-red cheek. "Jesus!"
"Outrider to Avenger: Lieutenant Quinn is fine." Elena grabbed the Specialist's hand. "On your feet, girl."
"Roger that, Outrider." Someone made a noise like a fish trying to breathe on a boat's deck, and that made Gallant grumble under his breath. "Kelly's happy to hear it."
"Wait!" Aileen pushed at Elena. "No, spread out!"
"Not until you're on your feet." Reapers weren't supposed to be sentimental, but teams were teams.
"I can get up by myself!" Aileen snapped. She proceeded to prove it. "It's a trap, Outrider! Move, before-"
Boom!
The funny thing was that all Elena really recognized was purple. It washed up in a great wave, surging out from the dark corners she normally called her own domain, searing over and through obstacles and rushing like a pounding tide. Sparks of violet energy cascaded out from the wave, and Elena only had a moment to suck in breath before-
Thwam!
It hit like water too. In an instant, she was drowning despite the air, and her vision blew up with stars behind her helmet. She felt nothing from her head to her toes for one moment of awful limbo.
Then she hit the facility wall, and feeling returned abruptly in a wild flash of agony when she smashed right through one of its heavy windows. Glass shattered against her back, cutting through her coat and to her flesh, and her tumble concluded with a head-over-heels rolling impact on the smooth, reflective floor inside. Elena slid on polish until she came to a jarring stop against a tall support beam.
Of course, she didn't feel it, because she'd blacked out before she even hit the ground.
Cameron threw himself to his feet, ducking past the officer and thundering down on the soldier who'd drawn his sidearm. He caught the gunman's wrist in the instant before the weapon was pointed at him, and he twisted up-
Bang!
"Fuck!" Cameron cried, as the red shot ricocheted around the APC. The officer screamed too, and the projectile finally ended its journey by driving between the shoulder blades of the curled-up nutshot victim.
Cameron yanked hard, and the gun flew. He grabbed for it, but it fell beneath the seats, and before he could scramble too far, the officer seized him, shoving him toward the rear. She launched a headbutt and Cameron barely got out of the way in time.
He struck with his elbows, forcing her to give ground, and then he caught her arm again when she retaliated with a punch for his throat. This time, the driver didn't react fast enough, and Cameron screamed with exertion when he brought all his strength to bear on the puppet's elbow joint. It bent the like a V the wrong way with an audible snap, and the officer shrieked, almost sounding like a real woman.
"Donut!" screamed the gunner, clambering up to his weapon. He racked the bolt, then swiveled it to face rearward. "Do not sling that co-"
"Son of a bitch!" Cameron seized his ankle with both hands. The driver chose that moment to swerve hard, and when Cameron tumbled, he brought the gunner with him, right down to the APC floor. The soldier screamed when Cameron punched his leg wound for good measure.
"Hug that shit!" screamed the other trooper. He lunged, kicking Cameron hard in the gut. When he screamed, the Adventer snarled. "Hug! That! Shit!" He punctuated each word with a blow.
Crash! This blow was a lot more personal, and Cameron yelped as he realized Liang must have finally come alongside. His eyes flicked up to the ladder. If he could just get up there and out, he could jump cars and-
He caught the next kick. By twisting, he hauled the soldier into a full split, which sounded like it did wonders for him. Cameron scrambled to his hands and knees, racing for the ladder-
"Butts!" cried the wounded gunner. He tackled Cameron hard, and the pair went right back to the deck. An armored forearm locked around Cameron's throat, and he seized it in both hands. He hauled, scrabbling for purchase, but the gunner locked in quickly, heaving on his windpipe. Cameron's lungs burned and seared as they were denied, and lights started to appear before his eyes-
Crack!
He could breathe. He could breathe, because the arm was gone. Cameron sucked in air, for a moment too wrapped up in that fact to really care about anything else.
Wham! Wham! Thud! The last soldier came down beside him, his helmet dented. Cameron frowned...and then he gasped as someone ran straight over him, heedlessly stepping on his ribs and using him as a springboard to reach the driver's compartment. A scream followed, then a thud, and a tremendous jerk in the APC's motion.
"L...Liang?" Cameron sat up hesitantly, clutching his battered chest. "Is that you?"
"No, it's Moira Vahlen." Liang threw the driver's corpse Cameron's way. "On your feet and close the top hatch."
"But...but..." Cameron struggled to obey the first part of that command. "Aren't we escaping?"
"In a bright orange car?" Liang scoffed. "I chose a distinctive color for a reason, Moose: there's a self-drive program installed. She's running off toward the Carolinas about now. We, on the other hand, are headed for Fredricksburg and the emergency exfil point, as soon as I get this distress beacon online."
"So, how are we-" Cameron broke off when Liang plopped firmly down behind the APC's wheel. "Are you out of your bloody-"
"Nope!" Liang pressed hard on her ring when she took command. "I still have my signal-mimic device, so it should think I have a head-chip. We're going to drive right on out of here."
"But..." Cameron paused to grab the stun lancer's baton and execute the unconscious Advent soldiers, almost without thinking about it. "But, if we're in one of their APCs-"
"Here." Liang pulled something from her bag: a rolled-up piece of paper. "Put that in a window somewhere."
"Why?" Cameron looked down at it. All he saw were Advent's incomprehensible squiggles. "Liang, they have to have reported your pursuit or my breakout at some point-"
"Of course they did. That's the best part." Her eyes sparkled. "That reads, Moose: communications equipment damaged in attempted prisoner escape. Two in custody. Taking them to the Warlock."
Cameron stared. "You...you're going to...you're claiming we're..."
"Yep!" Liang hit the gas hard enough Cameron had to grab for purchase. She had a note of cheerful glee in her tone. "And what Advent soldier in his right mind is going to interfere with a transport taking rebellious prisoners to one of the Chosen, I wonder?"
"Sir." Jiaying Shen waved from across the bridge. "Sergeant Liang has activated her distress beacon."
"They're compromised." Gallant swore. "John, get a crash team ready. As soon as we get Menace out of there, I want Firebrand moving personnel."
"Yes, sir." Bradford nodded. "Kelly-"
"I'm on it." She seemed glad for something to do. "David, Mariah, Julie, you're with me."
"Now," Gallant continued, glaring at the holodisplay, "just what the hell happened to Outrider?"
She was invisible, blowing through the breeze like a feather. She barely touched the ground when she ran, and none could detect her passing.
Weapons-fire rang on all sides, sending tracers flying and searing and twisting off on all sides. Soldiers shouted, sectoids hurled psi-beams, and through it all, XCOM continued to fight, one shot or one burst at a time. Their Skirmisher held the high ground with wild war whoops, gunning down anyone fool enough to show themselves from the ash and smoke rising over the battlefield. The Ruler came back to her feet, and she roared challenge and hate in one mixed breath.
The Assassin gave her a wide berth.
She vaulted over the nearest rail, then sprinted up to the facility window. Jumping through it without cutting herself on the glass shards that remained proved no challenge, nor did melting into the darkness once inside. The blonde lieutenant had flown into the undergrowth somewhere, but the Assassin didn't trouble herself with that little loose end: that was what she had minions for. Her eyes were set on another prize.
"I believe we have met," she observed, as she finished her approach. She hovered over the prone body in the shadows, and her lip curled as she smiled. "Yes, I think I recognize you." She leaned down and ripped the Reaper's mask off. "Dragunova, Volk's right hand. Novosibirsk...and Switzerland."
The Assassin crushed the mask in one hand. Glass from its lenses fell, and a moment later its own crumpled ruin joined them. She smiled all the wider.
"I had known this would be easy," she admitted to the unconscious body. She knelt, and one hand glowed with bright psionic energy. "I hadn't known it would be a treat as well."
She put her palm to Dragunova's forehead, and the Assassin hissed with feral pleasure as she joined minds with her. She fished and splashed in the pool of memories now laid out before her, casually trampling through the chaos of a little girl fleeing Advent's inevitable dominion, over the vivid memories of her burying her parents before she had two decades to her, past her accomplishments when Volk had left her in the wilds for almost a year to prove her worth. None of that was what the Assassin wanted.
Then she found it; the recovered supply ship that meant so much to XCOM. Her smile became even more savage, and she let out a long, hissing breath that crooned with longing.
"Not long now, Commander Gallant." She kept it to herself rather than speak directly to the broken relic over his com. She laughed when she heard the Berserker Queen's roar outside, and the frightened exclamations of XCOM's latest crop of wheat for the scythe. The Chosen rose, taking Dragunova by the collar of her coat. "No, not long at all."
She left the broken mask behind.
Author's Note 43: Refuge In Audacity
This was not the plan. This was not even remotely close to the plan. But I wrote this scene and all of a sudden, it happened. It just felt...natural. It made sense. Isn't it great?
Oh. Well, you might not think so. But I think it's great, so that's the part that matters. Now, let me just make a Viking funeral for most of my Season Two notes...
I love a character whose plan is so batshit stupid it simply has to work. Most of the time, people assume someone who looks like they know what they're doing and have every right to do it...does. I use that to my advantage a lot when I want to learn things - martial arts things, or business things, or just family things - that I theoretically shouldn't know. However, acting like that has its drawbacks, because there was one time that no one taught me a belt-critical technique I needed for testing until THE DAY OF TESTING...because I acted so self-assured everyone assumed I actually knew what I was doing. I note I never said to anyone that I didn't need to know it, but I didn't actively act like I needed help, if that makes sense.
And really...of all people, how likely are you to mess with a shipment of the WARLOCK's prisoners? Especially given what he almost did to Dourde...
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.