Please remember to favorite and follow!
"To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better, than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods."
~Thomas Babington Macaulay
Chapter Forty-five: Ashes and Temples
The klaxon was what woke him.
It beat at his ears with the subtlety of a thousand screaming souls, punching deep into his subconscious and hurling him out of bed before his mind had realized he wasn't asleep. His fingers wrapped around the grip of his bedside pistol in an instant, and by the time his eyes finished truly opening, he was standing in nothing but his underwear, sheets falling in a cascade around his muscled, lined, and scarred body.
"Red Alert!" Those two words sent a chill through his veins. "All hands, this is Carlock. This is not a drill: the base is under attack!"
"What?" Shaojie Zhang blinked once. "How on earth did they-"
Ka-boom! The ceiling shook, and Zhang shelved the questions. He seized pants and threw on his shoes, then took the gun and slammed hard on the access button beside his room's circular door shield. It hissed open in a flash, even while more detonations rang out, and Zhang sprinted into the corridor without bothering to hunt down a shirt.
"Chilong!" Said Tariq burst from his room across the hall at the same time. "Where are they coming from?"
"How the hell should I know?" Zhang glanced down the hall. "Anyone else here?"
"I think Fatima was getting her wrist looked at. Annette and Matt were...being Annette and Matt." Said lacked the habits of a Triad operative, and for that he lacked a sidearm. But he wasn't unarmed: he pointed with a rather large knife. "Marcel's door is open."
"He must have already moved out, or he was up when this happened. It is late." Chilong cursed his advancing age. Sleeping in past six? Soon the kids would be outstripping him. "Use your psi-powers and get me in contact with someone. How bad is it?"
"Hang on." Said inhaled sharply, and Zhang waited with very little patience as his eyes went purple. More explosions shook the base, and debris fell from above in short tides. Some chunks of metal and dirt rained off his shoulders, but he hardly noticed them.
"Right." Said finally exhaled. "Annette's got Matt and Marcel. They're holding Command. Looks like the main body of the enemy force is punching in through the primary access tunnel."
"Copy." Zhang turned. "I'm going to do what I can. Collect our weapons and follow me!"
"Roger that!" Said took a left-hand side passage, ducking low for speed. Zhang ran, not feeling the underground mortuary-chill even on his exposed skin. Adrenaline surged, searing his fingers and toes and throwing him on.
"How?" he wondered, as he made for Command. "How did they find us?"
"What on Earth-"
Fatima Tariq cried out as one of the overhead ventilation covers blew off. She vaulted back, heedless of her hip jabbing painfully into an infirmary table and nearly flipping it over. Medical techs on all sides yelped and ducked, some grabbing for whatever could be repurposed into a weapon on the fly.
Fatima had no time for that, because the first stun lancer came down while everyone was reacting.
"Mor balaten-"
"Shut up!" She lapsed into her native tongue then, as she lunged in and gave him a vicious up elbow with her bad arm. He reeled, and Fatima's push-kick would have put him through any wall that wasn't reinforced with alien alloy. The lancer crumpled with a pathetic wail as at least a dozen of his ribs broke in half.
"You!" Fatima caught the number-two man on the side of his cheek. This one turned out to be a soldier, and he screamed as her power literally flowed down her arm, burning a purple handprint on the side of his face. "I see you!"
Then there were more. Sectoids and lancers and troopers all came down, at least a full strike team's worth. Fatima grabbed one of the aliens by the crown of his head, twisting sharply and ripping every vertebrae from his skull down in directions it wasn't supposed to go. Around her, the medical staff lunged, doing what they could with what they had, and Advent soldiers screamed as scalpels found throats. Fatima's mind-controlled thrall opened fire, gunning down someone who seemed like his own sergeant.
Then the magnetic fire kicked off in earnest, and Fatima covered her head as shots ricocheted. She grabbed the first doctor she could, shoving him toward the door with a cry not even she fully understood. Something kissed her leg, and a moment later she felt blood trickle. At least it still bore her weight-
"Shit!" Fatima ducked as a shot hit that table she'd run into. It cracked and flew, spewing medical papers and equipment through the air. Fatima yelped again as something metal and solid whacked her in the shoulder.
Someone caught her from behind. Fatima shot an elbow into their face, and the arms around her waist disappeared. She spun, kicking right up into the fork of her enemy's legs. The red-armored officer tumbled with a shout.
"Get out!" Fatima shouted, muscling another doctor toward safety. A quick glance revealed only blood and broken corpses left - their courage remained, but their effectiveness...
"All hands report to defensive positions!" Carlock kept up his announcements even as more explosions broke ceiling tiles, and Fatima scrambled for the nearest emergency locker, smashing it with her elbow and ripping out the fireaxe within. "The base has been fully compromised by a hostile force-"
Fatima brought the axe down on the back of a sectoid's head, nearly splitting it in two. She ripped the blade free, hauling the body up to absorb wild shots from the remaining soldiers, now deployed and willing to engage. She inhaled, drawing on her Gift, and they both howled, clutching at their heads. Their chips misfired under her tender minstrations, and a moment later both overloaded and detonated, ripping shrapnel fragments through the Adventers' brains. They toppled with smoke pouring from their noses and ears.
"Tisiphone, get out of there!" cried one of the doctors, and Fatima needed no further encouragement. She threw the axe one-handed, not surprised when it missed anything of consequence but well served by how it forced the enemy down. She dove through the door in the nick of time, rolling under a surge of plasma-fire from a pair of angry vipers. The doctor hit the door seal, and not only did it close but the heavy alloy blast door slammed down as well.
"Does anyone have a com?" Fatima demanded. She pushed to her feet, warily eyeing the spots of green appearing on the door. "That might hold them for ten minutes. Less if they drop a gatekeeper."
"I've got one." The doctor proved a man of his word, and he offered the earpiece. "We'll hunker down in the secure levels until you can get a handle on this."
"Do that. You'll be safe there." Fatima stuck the device in and activated it. "All channels, this is Tisiphone. I am unhurt and active in the medical wing-"
"There you are!" Annette might have been playing laser tag for her tone. "Get down to Command and make it snappy! They're pushing in and you're going to miss all the action-"
"Belay that order." There was no mistaking that harsh, in-and-out accent. "Tisiphone and Megaera, report to Bay Seven immediately. I am on my way there and need an escort."
"Doctor..." Fatima cut herself off. "Copy that. I will be there as soon as I've hit the Armory-"
"Come immediately. There is no time!" Vahlen's voice cracked with animated anxiety. "Now, Tisiphone!"
"I'm coming!" Her feet were moving before her lips finished. "Just what on earth is so-"
"Vahlen out." And then she was, and Fatima was no closer to answers.
She hoped that door held long enough.
"I say again, the base is-"
"Shut your pie-hole, Carlock!" Annette Durand had her laser rifle, and damn it but she intended to use it. "Anyone who didn't hear you the last fifteen times is already dead, idiot."
"Don't call me names, frog." Patrick Carlock drew his sidearm though, abandoning his console station below the hologlobe. "Where the hell is Tariq?"
"Female or male?" Annette scoffed. "Male is arming up. As to the other, Vahlen commandeered her for something stupid." Annette eyed the blast doors sealed ahead...and winced when something big crashed hard. What, and on what, she didn't know...but dust and debris fell from above, and the base supports groaned in an unencouraging way.
"You've got one Fury." Nonetheless, Matt Hawkins' voice was cold. He braced his sniper rifle on a far console, letting Annette, Carlock, and the other two men who'd stayed behind in Command as the forward security team take the brunt of the wave. "Where's Chilong?"
"Hopefully on his way." Commander Peter van Doorn racked the bolt on his shotgun. Old-school purely Terran tech, but it had enough kick to be competitive, even now. The harsh blue lights around the globe reflected off his dome. "I wish we'd had time to armor and arm up."
"If we had, it wouldn't be called war." Marcel Garcia had a laser sidearm, but he'd commandeered a rifle from base security as well. Hodgepodge, sure, but he would be twice the fighter with than without.
Annette shot Matt a glance over her shoulder. "See, there are advantages to breaking regulations in the darkened corners of the Armory-"
"Stop before I have to notice what you're admitting to." Van Doorn glared, and Annette glared right back.
"You're not the boss of me-"
The blast door shattered.
"Pick targets!" Annette followed her own advice, and the harsh red line of a focused laser-strike went out a moment later. The first Advent soldier through the breach caught it on the chin, and then two of Carlock's .45 caliber bullets in the chest. He went down before he had time to scream, half his face melted and yellow blood painting his vest.
"Hold them here!" Matt fired a moment later, and then the few base security men and women on the upper level. Rifles and pistols barked, more than half of them lasers, ripping holes in the low-rushing formations of Advent soldiers who formed the assault's leading edge. Annette fired as rapidly as she could, content to put out sheer weight of fire rather than precisely aimed shots. The more she singed the air, the fewer places would be safe for a hostile to stand in. Dozens went down, mowed over as they tried to make their way from the blast doors down to the desks and consoles that might provide them cover.
"Are they moving their heavy units up?" A moment later, Van Doorn's own shotgun drowned out his voice. "Get on down here, you craven sons of bitches-"
"I'm seeing mutons," Annette reported, voice calm though her heart thundered. This was far worse than any force she'd engaged so far. Had the Furies three all been behind her and Chilong ahead of her, all with carapace and primary lasers, she had no doubt they could have held against anything up to a Chosen's personal appearance in the battlespace. Annette fired again, and this time her shot punched through one of the green beasts' shoulders. It dropped to hands and knees, roaring agony. "They aren't fully committed until we see the-"
"MECs!" Marcel warned, as some of the lumbering shapes in the dust cloud resolved into the blood-red shapes of heavy Advent mechanized units. Annette swore: these were immune to her psionic powers.
"Ballistics focus fire on the infantry!" She brought her laser to bear on the first MEC, and her snap shots boiled plating and added the stench of misfiring and roasted circuitry to the aura of charred flesh and barbeque. The MEC stumbled, but it also turned, and Annette swallowed as it leveled its cannon. "All laser weapons, mark my target and-"
Pow!
"Engaged," Matt reported, as the MEC's head flew off in the wake of his shot. The construct stumbled, and one of the Security types threw a grenade into the gap where the robot's neck should have been. Annette covered her eyes as the explosive cooked off not only itself, but the internal storage of micro-missiles. The MEC fairly vanished in a whirlwind flash of light and smoke and wild shrapnel that cut down its own allies as extensively as the defenders' fire.
"Alright, they're in!" Van Doorn fired, worked the pump, and fired again. Each shot claimed a stun lancer's life, ripping the things almost in half from concentrated buckshot sprays. The Commander seized the nearest com. "This is Van Doorn: execute defensive plan alpha-haven-seven!" He waved to Carlock, who seized his assigned lever and held it down one-handed, shooting with his other.
"Burn those sons of whores!" Annette agreed, much less professionally. She put her last shot into the fray, then ducked as she heard the rumble of the vents.
The original XCOM base had been designed with defense in mind, and the Interceptor Stations were no different. Any attacking force could send light units through the vents in many places, but nothing substantial could deploy anywhere but through the hangar bay, bypassing Big Sky and the interceptors in the process. What the aliens hopefully didn't know was that the same didn't hold for a one-way trip out. Operatives could follow careful passages in the rock out to the interceptors' launch stations over the main access passageway, and from there, initiate the deployment cycle.
Which, if the interceptors remained locked down as they were today, with no chance of blasting off...
White-hot jets of flame seared down from above, pouring from manned and waiting attack jets through vents embedded specifically for this purpose. The pilots fanned their engines precisely, drawing on hundreds of practice exercises over the years, and the wild conflagration that consumed the main access tunnel was something right out of a pyrophobe's worst nightmares. Sheets of red and orange and white and blue mixed together and rolled to all sides, washing anything shy of the command consoles in biting rage. Advent soldiers never realized what was happening before they were incinerated, but the tougher aliens had it worse. Mutons and berserkers felt the flames boil away their skin and sink into their muscles, burning them up outside and in, and their own resilience only made it the more agonizing. Sectoids shrieked and vipers let out choking wails that drove knives in Annette's ears.
"Burn, baby, burn!" she howled, as the Advent thrust came apart. Even MECs weren't immune to fires that burned hot enough to reduce their armor plate to industrial slag, that cooked off their explosive munitions in a mighty surge of popcorn-detonations. Muton grenades exploded in the mess, adding another hazard for any soldiers that might have survived the gale. Annette wished to pop up and open fire, but the rage was too much for her eyes. She burst out sweating even behind cover. The wall of heat moved as a solid mass, slapping people with its presence.
"Come on!" Carlock cried. He still held the lever. For safety purposes, it would snap back into place and redirect the flame as soon as he let go. "Get some, you bastards!" He spat. "Is that all you can conjure?"
Boom! They burst from the flames then in a tide, storming forward with a howling Advent cry on their lips and gear clattering as they ran. Several opened up from standoff range, while others reached to their belts and pulled out charges.
"Purifiers!" Matt's laser sniper went off, the noise almost lost in the roar from the engines. "Full-body fire protection-"
"Take them out!" Annette forced herself to rise, even though her eyes stung, and she fired. A purifier cooked off as her laser beam went right into his fuel tank. The explosion flung another off her feet, and Security's fire ripped into the remnants of the wave even as Carlock and Van Doorn and Marcel added themselves to it.
It was enough. Annette knew it was enough. The purifiers wavered - not even Advent's purpose-bred warriors could shrug off hitting a wall of resistance this strong. They were going to break, flamethrowers or no, incendiary grenades or no. Even as she had to throw herself down to avoid a blue tongue of burning chemicals, Annette knew that this wave would crumble - and without this wave, Advent had no hope of breaking their position.
She knew it. Advent knew it.
Someone else must have missed the bulletin.
Boom! The shot flew through the flames on a trail of smoke, red in its anger and spewing darkness like a comet. It arced past Annette, and at first she thought its firer had missed. She'd been right there.
But then Carlock screamed, and Annette had one second to spot him with a hole the size of her fist punched through his chest, eyes full of shock and glaze.
Then he fell, and the lever went up.
"No!" Annette dove for it, but she missed. Her fingers caught the control an instant after it snapped back to the safety position, and the firestorm was, for just a moment, ended. Before she could pull it back down-
"Chryssalids!" Marcel fired, and Annette spun. On they came: at least a few dozen of the hateful beasts charging with talons clicking on the floor, many eyes glinting with evil hate, saliva flying as they kept low for the advance. They snapped side to side without warning, making them incredibly difficult targets, and their carapace hide shrugged off most bullet hits like the body armor Carlock had learned to build from it. Lasers did better, but there were so many of them-
"Die!" Annette screamed, drawing on her power. She hit them with a repulsing wave, the like of which she hadn't used since the Dam. It flung the animals back on their heels, but at the same time drove a knife into her temple. She screamed from more than fear as they threw themselves right back forward, surging past the hazard markers before she could pull the lever down again and resume the firestorm.
"Shoot them!" Van Doorn ordered. "Come on! Not fair if you let me have all the fun!" His shotgun roared, and roared, and roared again. "I'll take you all myself if I have to, you bastards!"
Annette shrieked, so loud glass cracked across the room. Not all of it was her voice: purple coated her vision and filled the air with a misting mire of violet fury, strong enough to throw chryssalids up into the ceiling and back into the flames. Some burned from the shove, others crumpled with broken heads and shattered knees. Those that survived with injuries like that found themselves beset upon by laser and gunfire, succumbing quickly to concentrated blasts.
Annette's head throbbed. Her vision wavered, but she didn't care: the Furies were strong, but the aliens had seen something in her when they took her. She had a gift beyond mere psionic aptitude, stronger than anything any other human had ever possessed, and it was the only thing that gave her friends a chance. She seized on the field with wild abandon, drawing up ever larger augments of power, power enough she might give herself an aneurysm before all was said and done. None of it mattered, none of it, because despite her pains and despite her tears, her successive blasts of fear-taught storm surge were-
It didn't hurt. That was the strangest thing: something hit Annette in the shoulder like a freight train, but it didn't hurt. Just...tugged. It was like that book she had read once, with the swimming woman. As she tumbled, Annette could only think of sharks, and wonder how Advent had mustered one that flew in the air.
Then she and the blood-spewing stump of her left arm hit the deck, and all that bliss washed away under a tidal current of agony.
"Annette!" Marcel rose, laser rifle blazing. He fired and fired, while Annette struggled to staunch the bleeding. Her hand came away soaked red from what was nearly her shoulder.
"No! Go back! Protect yourself and worry about the base! Keep Van Doorn and the Doctor safe!" Annette thought she was being very clear. Unfortunately, whatever her mind insisted on saying, all that came out was a soprano wail interspersed by coughing fits. She couldn't make her tongue form words.
Her wail got louder when the next shot hit Marcel below the neck. He slammed back into Carlock's console hard enough the whole thing upended. An absurdly surprised expression - something akin to total disbelief - spread over his features as he looked down at the red rapidly staining his caved-in chest.
Then he fell.
Van Doorn's shotgun roared and roared. He worked the pump like a madman, spewing buckshot wherever he pointed, and for a moment it looked like he would stem the tide. Chryssalids broke around him, hunting for less bothersome prey, and Advent hadn't been able to move their infantry up just yet. Maybe...just maybe...
His gun went dry. He dropped it and drew his knife, then leapt onto a chryssalid's back with a manic yell, stabbing for chinks in its armor. More of them piled in with exulted chirps and screams. Annette never saw him again.
Fall back! Someone was shouting, and this Someone sounded animated. Fall back! Secondary positions!
Annette pushed herself into a sitting position. She watched as Base Security scrambled to try and find a spot they could hold, with Command fallen. Annette knew what they had to: if this strongest revetment had collapsed, there was nothing - and nowhere - else that would stand. Only a determined counterattack that retook the fortifications would be enough to save the base, and that was the one thing of which the soldiers were completely incapable. Terrified and reeling under the pressure, they would fall back and hold their predetermined resistance points with, Annette was sure, gallantry, élan, and courage enough to die forgotten.
"Rally!" Matt howled. He fought with his rifle until they got too close, then with his pistol and vicious mindfrays, eyes glowing purple. "Rally and stand! Come on, stand your-"
"No!" Annette cried, as a chryssalid jumped on the blond American. Animal and man tumbled off, and Annette heard him screaming for an agonizingly long time. She tried to grab for her gun, but it was too far, and she was so weak with the red running down her side...
Shadow fell over her. Annette's gaze turned upward, and her mouth dried in a heartbeat.
The chryssalid lunged with jaws agape.
"Piss off!" Pow! Pow!
The chryssalid screamed, and it stumbled backward. Shaojie Zhang sighted carefully, then hit the trigger again. A sniper he was not, but he knew what he was doing when it came to guns, laser or ballistic. His shot went directly into the beast's eye, and Zhang hit the overcharge without hesitation. Red heat boiled the animal's brain from the inside out, sending steam out from the gaps in its carapace in massive gouts.
"Annette!" Zhang ignored the collapsing corpse that still jerked and twitched and skittered, hurrying to the Frenchwoman's side. He swore when he saw her, and frantically grabbed for any measure of bandage or tourniquet he could. "Your arm-"
"Who cares?" Her skin was green, and Zhang paused when he saw the rend marks on her good arm and on her chest, ripping her shirt into tatters and cutting across her cheeks deep enough for him to see bone. Her eyes were full of agony - and something even worse. "Zhang-"
"Let me bandage you." He started to try, closing his ears to her screams as he pressed hard on her stump. "We can get you to the infirmary-"
"Zhang!" Then she howled in a different way, and Zhang paused when he saw...motion beneath her flesh.
"Eggs," he whispered, glancing to the dead chryssalid. He swore, then reached for her belt. "Your medkit's nanobot spray will destroy the infectants-"
"I don't have it," Annette gasped. She shrieked again a moment later. "They're...they're eating me, Zhang-"
"Then let's get you to someone who can-" Zhang trailed off, fully realizing how alone the two were. The rest of the chryssalids must have moved further into the facility, and the flames were still too severe for the main body of the Advent force to advance. He swallowed. "Annette-"
"Zhang..." She screwed up what was left of her face, howling as another burst of motion in her midsection bespoke a fetal chryssalid eating to grow. "Zhang, it hurts..." She patted at his shoulder weakly, almost desperately. "It hurts...it hurts..."
Zhang sat very still for a long moment. His limbs felt weightless and cold, and reality skewed itself sideways into some manner of dream: the sort of thing you couldn't accept was real, not for a minute, and yet...
"I'm sorry," he finally murmured.
"No," Annette managed. She coughed, and red and yellow both came out: sign of her infestation. "I...I'm...oh, mon dieu!" She shrieked, clutching at the moving bulges in her skin.
"Leaves from the vine, falling so slow..." Zhang closed his eyes, surprised to feel a touch of wetness. "Like fragile, tiny shells, drifting in the foam." He found what he needed. "It's an honor to have served with you, Annette Durand."
Then Zhang brought up his pistol, put it between her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Methodically, heedless of the red blood coating his arms, Zhang moved to shoot each moving lump of alien, straight through Annette's still-twitching body. When at last what was left of her lay still...
Advent's soldiers moved through the fire only a moment later. When they came upon Zhang, he still knelt by Annette, pistol forgotten, cradling her in his arms.
"Little soldier lass," he sang, as Advent soldiers seized him, "come marching home." He offered no resistance as they pushed him down and cuffed his hands. His eyes never turned from Annette's broken remains. "Brave soldier lass...comes marching home."
"Bay Seven..." Fatima Tariq rounded the corner for the aforementioned interceptor bay - and she froze when the turn led her into the business end of a laser rifle.
"Oh, it's you." Said lowered the weapon. "Get in, sis."
"God, you nearly gave me a heart attack." Fatima hurried through the door, frowning when her brother slammed it and hit the blast seal. "Aren't we going to help Chilong?"
"There is no time." That was Vahlen, and Fatima's head spun. The Swiss scientist perched by the prototype occupying the bay. She waved. "Get over here! Did I remember incorrectly that you and your brother trained on the simulators?"
"Uh..." Fatima eyed the sleek alien-like lines of the Firestorm-model interceptor a little warily. "I mean, we got bored and wanted to do a sim flight race once or twice-"
"Good enough." Vahlen hit the cockpit release, and the seals disengaged. "This is our only Firestorm, the only aircraft with the range for the mission I have in mind. You will likely have to abandon the craft when you reach safe distance, but I have brought a locator beacon keyed to the proper frequency, as well as all our reconnaissance data that might prove fruitful. I believe the self-destruct remains functional as well, to make the aliens believe you have died in a crash."
"What mission?" Fatima winced as something exploded. "Doctor, is this really the time to be launching missions, when the base is under attack-"
"The base is not merely under attack, Tisiphone, it has for all intents and purposes fallen." Vahlen hopped down from the little stairs by the cockpit. "Which of you won this race?"
"She did." Said pointed without hesitation. "Don't know how, but she-"
"You will fly." Vahlen pointed to the pilot's seat authoritatively. Fatima shook her head.
"Doctor, my wrist-"
"Half the controls are neural anyway, you know this. You will be unable to well operate the weapons, but if you dogfighting are, the mission has likely already around your ears crumbled." If she noticed the incorrect word order, she gave no sign of it.
"With all due respect, I believe we need to offer Chilong and Wildcard aid-"
"It will not matter," Vahlen snapped, real impatience in her tone. She again pointed to the cockpit. "They are here, and the base is falling around us. I have been a fool to hide in the shadows from our own natural allies for too long."
"Wait." Said blinked. "You want us to-"
"I want you to find Edward Gallant and his Avenger," Vahlen confirmed. "The aliens have brought too much force to bear here. We cannot hold under the best of circumstances, let alone those we must currently face. Bring all our data which I have provided. Help him find those of us who survive."
"Wait. Those of us-"
"Get in!" Vahlen seized Fatima by the bad wrist, which was as close to unfair as Fatima could imagine. She cried out when the scientist muscled her over to the stairs.
"Alright!" Fatima dropped into the pilot's seat, clutching her mangled hand. "You berserker of a woman..."
"Now you, Said." Vahlen waved to the navigator's seat, mounted behind the pilot's. "Go with my hopes."
"We could find room for you," Fatima objected. "There's a third seat for passengers further back."
"I cannot just abandon my soldiers." Vahlen shook her head. "It is not the role of the one who led others into danger to flee at the first sign of-"
Bam! Something hit the blast door. A dent the size of Fatima's head appeared. Bam!
"Get in!" Vahlen cried. She shoved Said toward the aircraft. "Go, and hurry!"
"Come on!" Fatima agreed. Unwilling to give up, she continued. "Both of you, mount up!" She hit the activation switches, and the Firestorm thrummed as its anti-grav drive engaged.
Bam! A crack appeared in the door, then another. Something huge outside let out a familiar-sounding roar: it smelled prey.
Said scrambled up the steps. Fatima didn't watch him, more concerned about her instruments. She waited for the little bounce as he climbed into place, then the-
Whoosh!
"What?" Fatima's head snapped up as the cockpit glass shot back and sealed. She snapped her eyes to the left, and she saw her brother jumping down from the stairs. "Wait! Said!"
"Go!" he ordered, before bringing his laser rifle up. The door nearly shattered under the next impact. "Doctor, get aboard-"
"Said!" Fatima cried, reaching up to hit at the glass. She almost disengaged the cockpit seal and went to fetch him.
Almost, because the door blew apart before she could.
"No!" Fatima clutched the stick as Said opened fire. His shots ripped into the berserker who led the way into the room, hitting her hard enough she stumbled. Vahlen drew a plasma pistol from the next best thing to nowhere, and in a moment her fire finished the job. The alien tumbled with a roar and an impact hard enough the Firestorm shook. Fatima reached for the seal now-
"Said!" The cry burst from her lips again when red mag-fire hit him in a sudden storm. Shots ripped through his chest and shoulders, blowing scarlet spray out on all sides, and her brother managed a shocked gasp before he collapsed. Vahlen stumbled when his body hit her, and Fatima screamed so loud her throat burned. Agony deeper than any of the flesh ripped up from her lungs and out anywhere it could, sinking into her skin and blurring her eyes with tears.
"Go!" Vahlen commanded, waving. "Go, now!" She made it to her feet, scrambling for her pistol, and Fatima watched her mouth move. "Tisiphone-"
A general came through the door, gold armor glinting. She fired a warning shot, one that kicked up dirt and rubble before Vahlen's face. Still the doctor went for her gun, and Fatima watched as the general leveled her weapon, shouting what had to be a cease-and-desist order-
The figure that came next was tall, mighty, and proud. Blue-skinned and wrapped in dark armor and a heavy hood, he walked with passion and derision, stepping over bodies with a fastidious intensity, clearly intent on keeping his boots clean. His rifle he held in hand, and Fatima could see smoke leaking from its breech and muzzle.
The Hunter caught Moira Vahlen by the arm, hauling her off her feet one-handed. He bared a crooked, pointy-toothed grin.
Mag-fire hit the Firestorm. Without thinking, Fatima slammed on the accelerator, throwing power to the engines. The anti-grav drive pushed her up the launch tunnel, moving faster than her instincts could come to the decision to throw herself into a vengeful rampage. Said had died to send her on her way, so she had to...she had to...
Fatima supposed it was lucky Vahlen had given her the GPS information about Avenger's likely positioning, and that the Firestorm had an autopilot to handle the busywork. It let her break apart and cry as soon as the craft cleared the launch tunnel, and kept her from having to recover for hours.
Author's Note 45: Hype That Season Two Midfinale
I thought about apologizing, but I'm not sorry. Whatever's best for the story is best for me, if that makes sense - and this is definitely what's best for the story. Oh, yes it is.
To repeat, there will not be any chapters for the next 2-3 weeks. I will not likely be using this time to work on professional things - honestly, I'm writing this chapter far enough in advance that the professional edit will likely be done by the time it airs(EDIT: it is) - but I will have to prepare my next serial project before the current one concludes airing in mid-May, and then I'll want to rebuild a VC buffer before I start posting. In all likelihood, this chapter will go up about when I pivot back to VC, so you'll literally be waiting on my completing initial draft work on the next few chapters.(As of the time of this edit: Chapter 50 out of 60 is done, and I've got roughly 10 chapters left in my serial as well. I'm shooting to finish both by the end of April, but we'll see if I actually make that.) Not to mention I'm going to be doing some work for my father's engineering company, and God alone knows what that will take out of me in the next few weeks.
You can keep track of my progress via my profile page, which I update every few chapters of VC I write. And if you're into that, there are links on my profile to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and my fantasy/superhero web serial novels. Leave lots of reviews(who knows, maybe I'll listen to your ideas!), check out our TV Tropes page, and mash that favorite button! I'll be back before you know it for the closing chapters of Season Two, and if you love certain characters you'll wish I hadn't. Oh snap!
Until after the break, Vigilo Confido.