The team quickly broke through the minimal defenses the Aliens had set up around the outskirts of the Mothership. Mostly just lines of troopers that stood no chance against their advanced Gauss weapons. Psycho activated a stimulant package on his suit feeling the blood rush of chemicals keeping him awake.

He then noticed Frosty put her hand to her head as they arrived at the bottom of a sheer cliff, up above them loomed the Alien mothership. Dozens of scouts flew around out of range, but they hadn't noticed the team. In fact, they seemed to be heading towards the mothership but at a different place.

Frosty turned to Psycho and then the rest of her team. "Alright, I just got word. Nomad's team has reached their entry point. They met a lot more opposition than us but they're moving in. Their goal is to get to the heart of that ship and find some kind of weakness. Ours is to make sure they're not interrupted.

The team nodded in acknowledgement. Psycho was a little disturbed by their lack of speech but kept quiet about it ironically. He did face Frosty again and motioned up. "And exactly how are we supposed to get up there? I don't suppose that Hopper of yours is still buzzing around?"

Frosty rolled her eyes under her mask at his error. "Strength mode. We're climbing up." She dramatically switched into strength mode which made the nanofibremuscles and tendons on her suit glow eerily red. She turned, holstered her rifle,and then jumped up into the rock. With her added strength, she dug her fingers into the rock making handholds.

Psycho shrugged it off. He'd done worse in SAS training. He jumped up and clawed the wall as he switched to strength mode. The rest of the team did the same, and Psycho was a little surprised at how easily they were able to climb using their new suits. His old suit would have had trouble doing this for these extended periods of time.

As they climbed up the 50 meter cliff face, the wall itself began to shake and a deep guttural growl echoed across the island. Immediately Psycho recognized it and hanging from one hand engaged his radio. "Frosty! They're launching something big!"

Frosty had almost reached the summit of the cliff when a large barrel of what Psycho assumed to be fuel tpppled over towards her. She reacted quickly and smashed it with a backhand, easily tearing though the relatively thin sheet metal with her strength mode. Fuel spilled out beside her, and evidently she'd caused a spark as well as a huge spray of fire rushed down the side of the hill creating a perfect signal fire.

Frosty cursed out loud and finished climbing up to the top, soon enough, the rest of the team made it up but they weren't alone anymore. The huge plume of smoke had drawn the attention of every Scout in the area and they were clearly outgunned. Frosty switched to squad com and barked. "Stealth! Take cover!"

Psycho didn't move even as the team did. He just turned on his stealth mode and began to watch the power bar begin to drop. Movement made the micro fiberoptic cameras and screens on his suit work in overdrive, draining the battery. The scouts came down now, scanning the area where the team and the flames remained.

Psycho spoke softly through his radio. "Stay still you nutters. Don't drain your batteries."

He could hear the odd footstep or crack around him, but being able to stay still gave him time to survey the area. They were on what was left of a mountainside road, an overturned truck half buried in the ground. The mountain was still shaking slightly, and up above the mothership seemed to be opening and spewing smoke that obscured everything around them.

Psycho watched carefully now, ready to draw and fire if the scouts came a little too close to him. But just like he'd learned, they instead focused on the areas where cover was prevalent. They knew that prey hid from them.

He looked up at the mothership, it was clear that a large portion of the top had opened up and now another warship like the one Nomad had destroyed was coming out and beginning to hover over the island. Psycho kept his breathing calm, his heartbeat slow. There was no telling what the scouts would be able to pick up on.

There were at least two dozen in the air around them now, five of them moved in close and scanned intensively. Psycho's cloak was at about half power now, it wouldn't be much longer for the other's cloaks to fail since they'd ducked into cover after stealthing.

Come on you alien bastards… no one's here… just keep going!

They kept on waiting, and waiting… the scouts had almost finished their looking when Psycho heard a soft curse through his radio

"Dammit, my charge is almost gone."

"Hold it together Wallace, just stay still."

"Fuck Leesh... these things are everywhere."

"Hold it... just don't move. Let them pass."

"They'll see me! They'll take us all out!"

"You saw the report! Just visual contact! Don't be stupid!"

"Maybe.. maybe i can... shit shit shit!"

Frosty was encouraging him - in a way-, but Psycho could hear it in his voice, he wasn't going to hold it together. "Listen mate, just don't move. These things'll only fight you if they see you. Just stay still!"

The scouts had finished their look, and now began to drift upwards to the crowd. A quarter charge on Psycho's cloak told him that they'd be safe, the scouts might spot them for a moment afterwards, but once the cloak's capacitor's char-

"Die you motherfuckers!"

Psycho clenched his fists as he spotted the Marine come out of cloak with his Gauss Rifle up and firing. The blue projectiles flew up and knocked the targeted scout out of the skies before the others could react, but now his position by the cliff ledge was blown. He moved away from them towards teh cliff, drawing the scouts' attention away from the rest of the team.

Frosty cursed the man over the radio and continued. "Everyong hold! For fuck's sake don't move!"

Psycho could barely hold himself back, the single Marine screamed as he took down yet another scout with his automatic gauss rifle, but the whole mass now moved towards him

The third large tentacled machine didn't even bother shooting. It just charged straight down and smashed into the Marine tentacles first, flinging him about like a ragdoll before throwing him clear off the cliff along with a chunk of the broken roadside.

Psycho winced and cursed softly as he heard the Marine scream as he fell to his death. The scouts now moved at a faster pace, reasonably assured that they'd found their prey.

With the scouts backs turned, the rest of the team's cloaks failed as well but they remained in cover. The suit automatically switched to armor mode giving them maximum charge, but nobody said anything. Psycho was still cloaked with only a few seconds left when Frosty finally came out of hiding in the shadows and motioned with her hand. "Come on. He's wasted. We'll grieve later. We gotta save the planet now so let's move it."

Psycho finally shut off his cloak. He'd wanted desperately to blow those alien bastards to hell, but unless he had a dismounted auto-cannon from a VTOL in his hands, it would have been a pointless waste of life. Frosty looked at him and nodded. "Come on, Nomad still needs us to hold the door open for him."

Psycho didn't say anything for a moment, but he now understood Frosty's callsign. "Did you know him?"

"Yeah." That was all she said.

Psycho looked over the edge of the cliff, a piece broken out from where the Scout had hit the ground. Memories of Aztec and Jester came back, but only for a moment. "So long mate."

Without another word, he turned and joined the rest of the silent team, they still had a mission to complete, even with the shock and awe of an alien invasion on Earth prevalent on their minds.


a/n: Short, but something is better than nothing. next chapter will be longer and actually have some semblance of plot! :P