by Rick Barba
Other than the machinery, the vast space was deserted.
“Gosh,” reported Thibideaux. “Either we killed them all out front, or the rest skedaddled. I suspect the latter.”
As if in response, the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in the background. It sounded distant.
“Captain, we’re hearing a firefight way up high on the ridge,” reported the Alpha squad leader, a Ranger lieutenant named Dobbs.
The C2 team started tapping console buttons.
“That must be the Skirmisher recon team at the back exit,” said the tactical officer.
Bradford watched the monitor. “The vault is empty because the rats are abandoning ship,” he said. “Can we get a drone up there for a picture?”
Suddenly, Dr. Marin’s station monitor beeped with an arriving file. On-screen, he popped open a map scan sent up from Lopez. When Marin saw it, he quickly flipped open his cell-comm and called her.
“Bonnie, is this right?” he asked quietly.
“It is what you see,” she replied.
“They’re right on the mountain!” said Marin.
“Indeed they are, boss.”
Marin caught Dr. Tygan’s eye and urgently waved him over.
“What is it, Will?” asked Tygan as he approached.
Marin pointed at the scan.
“We’ve got something very, very psionic arriving from the east,” he said.
WHEN THE CHRYSSALIDS burst from the mountain, the strange humanoid whom Alexis Petrov had been studying through her scope was, oddly enough, waving to her. She watched as he lunged into cover just before seven ravenous insectoid killers clattered past his boulder. His dive was graceful for such a large man, if “man” he was. It reminded her of CK Munger.
They’ll smell him, she thought.
At that moment, she felt the cold barrel of a pistol on the base of her skull.
“Please don’t move, Alexis,” said a female voice quietly.
“Lay down your rifle,” said a male voice. “Please.”
Petrov took a breath, then smiled. “You’re so polite, how can I refuse?” she said. She put the rifle down. “Can I face you?”
“Slowly,” said the female. “Hands up, please.”
Petrov raised her hands and rotated to see Mia Vo, a woman she’d hunted with numerous times. Next to Mia, also holding a pistol trained on Petrov, was Joe Epstein, one of the most jovial and gregarious Reapers in New Samara. Seeing him point a gun at her, she fought back laughter but couldn’t control her grin.
“What’s so funny, Petrov?” he asked. “You know I’ve been wanting to kill you for years.”
At this, all three of them cracked up. Mia Vo’s laugh was one of the best things in camp, especially when she tried to suppress it, as she did now. The two lowered their weapons. Epstein was about to speak again when several bone-chilling Chryssalid shrieks drew their attention.
Petrov turned to see the bugs fanning out in a circle around the humanoid below, who scrambled atop his boulder. The door in the mountain rolled shut with a loud metallic clang.
“Damn, they found him fast,” she said.
Vo and Epstein stepped up beside her, frowning.
“This will be ugly,” said Vo.
“It’s not a very fair fight,” agreed Epstein.
Then it hit Petrov. “You guys were sneaking up behind me,” she said.
“Indeed we were,” said Epstein, nodding. “Which reminds me—technically, you’re under arrest, comrade.”
“That guy down there was trying to warn me,” said Petrov. She turned to Epstein and Vo. “He saw you coming.”
They hesitated only a second, then all three Reapers quickly slipped their Vektor rifles from their slings. They set up, called targets, sighted, and took out three Chryssalids with clean one-shot kills in the first volley.
* * *
Atop the boulder, Darox had wielded his Kal-7 Bullpup. Via headset he was ordering his team to remain in hiding—an order they would disobey, of course—when he saw green eruptions of alien blood spurt upward from the mandible-chomping heads of the three Chryssalids trying to sidle around his left flank. All three bugs dropped dead immediately. It was easily the finest shooting exhibition he’d ever seen.
“Koros?” he radioed. “Mahnk? Did you do that? Who did that?”
Darox looked down the graded path toward the boulder pile at the ravine exit. Both Skirmisher brothers, howling loudly with shotguns drawn, burst out of the rocks and sprinted directly at the remaining Chryssalids. Rika was sliding down the slope behind them, looking as angry and regal as ever.
“Okay, I like these odds much better,” said Darox.
He swiveled and fired his shotgun at the nearest bug. The blast tore off one of its hind legs, but it kept coming, lightning fast. When the beast reached the boulder, it tried to leap up. But the missing leg hindered its jump and it landed short, slashing with its poisonous talons at the rock just below Darox.
This left the monster helpless against Darox’s point-blank follow-up shot.
The other three bugs had turned to face the Skirmishers charging loudly up the couloir. Although Chryssalids stood a full two meters high, they moved with frightening speed, rarely seeking cover as they dashed straight at targets. They tended to work in packs, sending in one to draw attention while others darted to flanking positions.
As a result, during the initial alien invasion in 2014, most soldiers (including XCOM operatives) had been trained to engage Chryssalids from a distance whenever possible. But Skirmishers were different. They had claws too.
One bug hissed and jabbed its slavering mandibles at Mahnk, who deftly stepped aside. Gleaming silver Ripjack blades abruptly extended from his wrist gauntlet. With great relish, he plunged them into the creature.
Mahnk’s strike tore a gaping hole in the arthropod’s sleek black exoskeleton, and greenish gore poured out. Then Mahnk thrust upward, enlarging the gruesome gash, and the Chryssalid convulsed in shrieking agony. In just seconds it fell dead, leaving only two bugs alive: one small and purple with glowing eyes, the other larger and deep black with a more humanoid torso and head.
“Two breeds of the same vile insect!” shouted Mahnk, his claws dripping with bug blood. “I want them both as trophies!”
Darox realized his position atop the boulder gave him no real advantage—Chryssalids could leap twenty vertical feet with ease. He dropped to the ground and maneuvered behind the screeching purple bug, which now stood in a face-off with Rika farther down the path. The larger, black Chryssalid tried to dance sideways around Rika for a flank attack, but Koros dinged it with an impressive hipshot.
Rika fired her own Bullpup, then immediately rolled toward the rock wall to avoid the purple Chryssalid’s slashing talons. Mahnk lunged to land a glancing claw-strike of his own. When the embattled bug turned to him, it seemed to realize that its options were limited. That moment of hesitation gave Darox a chance to unclip an incendiary grenade and carefully roll it under the bug’s tail end.
“Live fire!” he shouted.
Everybody dived away.
As the fireball engulfed the shuddering arthropod, the black Chryssalid suddenly pounced and pinned Koros to the ground. A quick poisonous talon strike punctured Koros’ chest plate before anyone could move. Then the bug’s head rose up, readying its dripping jaws for a thrust into the exposed flesh, a move that would kill Koros and implant eggs, turning him into a zombified host.
But then the Chryssalid’s head exploded.
Darox heard the crackle of multiple rifle reports a split second later.
He turned toward the couloir’s headwall.
* * *
Up on the rock ledge, Petrov turned her head from her rifle scope.
“That was my bullet,” she said.
Epstein patted his rifle. “Sorry, no, Daisy here took that one,” he said.
“Wrong,” said Vo. “My kill.”
Petrov smiled and put her eye back to her scope. As sh
e swung her sight across the ravine, she centered on the big humanoid again. He was gazing up at their position. After a second, the fellow raised his hand.
“He’s waving again,” she said.
Epstein waved back. “This is me waving goodbye,” he said. He looked at Petrov. “Alexis, we need to scoot home. You heard the hornet’s nest down the mountain. There’s a lot of nasty fighting going on in the valley.”
Petrov had heard the furious gunfire and ground-rocking explosions as she’d arrived on the rock ledge overlooking the couloir.
“They’re taking the fight to the aliens,” said Petrov, watching the humanoids tend to their wounded squad mate. “That’s a good thing, right? Let’s go say hello.”
Mia Vo checked her auto-loader. “I do like the way they kill Chryssalids,” she said with a wicked grin. “Up close and personal.”
Petrov looked at Vo. “Mia, how long were you guys on my tail?”
“Every step,” said Vo.
“Come on.”
“She’s not kidding,” said Epstein, reslinging his Vektor. “Volk put you under full surveillance the moment you got back to your tent.”
Petrov looked confused. “So why didn’t you just stop me when I was sneaking out of camp?” she asked. “Why let me get this far?”
Vo frowned. “We wanted to see what you’d find,” she said, as if it was obvious.
Epstein nodded. “You’re the best tracker in New Samara.” He stood up. “You find all the good stuff.”
“Well, I didn’t find the Hunter,” replied Petrov. “I lost his trail days ago. I followed the ADVENT cargo flights to this place instead. The aliens are building something big and important down there. Look what they’ve got defending it.” She stared down at the Chryssalid carcasses scattered across the ravine. Then she pointed at the humanoids. “Joe, before I left, Volk and the XCOM officer were talking about Skirmishers. You’ve heard of them?”
Epstein’s eyes widened. “The scary high-country boogiemen we keep hearing about in the settlements?”
“Yeah,” said Petrov. “Those guys down there sure look like candidates, don’t they? Let’s go make first contact. Like Mia said, they kill aliens real good. They might be valuable allies.”
Epstein frowned. “Our orders were to track you down and bring you back safe.”
Suddenly, the heavy security door groaned under them on the headwall. It started rolling open again.
“Uh oh,” said Vo.
Petrov watched as the humanoids below dragged their injured mate into the boulder field at the ravine’s open end. She knelt back down and raised her rifle.
“Let’s get sighted,” she said.
“Roger that,” said Vo.
Epstein sighed. “Okay,” he said.
Below them, more Chryssalids rushed out, doing their odd four-legged skitter. Petrov counted two, four . . . and then four more.
“Okay, I got eight total,” she said. “Damn.”
And then four more clattered out.
“Crap,” said Vo. “Twelve!”
And then seven more, one by one. The phalanx of spiky, four-legged horrors was so long it stretched nearly the full length of the couloir. They stepped over their seven dead cousins without even pausing to investigate.
“Now I count nineteen,” said Petrov. “This is bad. Real bad.”
“We gotta lay low,” said Epstein tensely. “I mean, if we open fire now . . .”
“We’ll be dead,” whispered Vo, nodding. “The jumpy bastards will find a way to swarm us in no time. They’re relentless.”
The vanguard of the Chryssalid column was clattering through the boulder piles now. Petrov could see no sign of the Skirmishers. But she knew they were stuck in the rock jumble. There hadn’t been enough time for them to climb the slope and retreat through the tree line. Especially not with a wounded soldier.
The lead Chryssalid suddenly halted and rose up taller, scanning the rocks.
Some said bugs could detect the electromagnetic fields of living entities. Others said they had the alien equivalent of a dog’s sense of smell—biosensors that could “sniff out” particulate residue in the parts-per-billion range. Whatever the case, experience had shown that Chryssalids had a knack for finding hidden people.
“What’s the go, boss?” asked Vo.
Petrov nestled her eye into her rifle scope. “Unless you guys want to arrest me again, I’ll start at the front end and work my way back,” she said.
Vo smiled and aimed. “I’m keeping count this time,” she said.
Epstein sighed again. Then he unslung his rifle.
* * *
Darox listened as the clattering of bony insectoid legs suddenly came to a halt.
They smell us, he thought.
He didn’t know exactly how many Chryssalids gathered next to the rocks, but he’d seen enough to know his team was vastly outnumbered. He felt good about fighting in the boulder pile, where Skirmisher tactics and weapons gave them some advantage. But Koros was gasping from the poison and barely able to see, much less fight. And even if the snipers up on the headwall ledge, whoever they were, offered fire support, the odds were still not good.
He glanced over at Mahnk and Rika. They knew it too. Yet both looked entirely unafraid.
Mahnk leaned close. “Time for glory, brother,” he whispered.
Darox smiled back. “Yes, it is time,” he said.
He nodded at Rika, who nodded back. Koros lay next to her, and she put a gentle hand on his wounded, heaving chest. Then she slid to the far edge of the large granite slab they used for cover. Darox unclipped a fragmentation grenade and held it up. The others did the same. As the rattle of Chryssalid legs stabbing at rocky footholds grew louder, they tossed the frags over the slab.
The detonations triggered something entirely unexpected.
When Darox rose with his shotgun, he saw mayhem and sheer panic unlike anything he’d ever seen. The great Chryssalid pack was scattered and screaming, taking heinous fire from multiple sources on all three cliff walls. Meaty chunks of bug flesh flew in every direction. Darox spotted the muzzle flash of the Reapers’ rifles on the headwall. But clearly, much heavier ordnance was hitting bugs, rocks, and ground with gut-wrenching thumps of concussive power.
The incoming rounds had the distinctive purple glow and carbonite odor of psionic energy.
One black Chryssalid scrambled madly over boulders and made a great leap completely over the granite slab where the Skirmishers hid. The alien bug nearly landed atop Koros; when the creature crouched and turned hungrily to the fallen warrior, it caught shotgun blasts from two directions. Then Darox rammed his Ripjack claws into its ugly shrieking mouth to finish it off.
“What weapons are these?” cried Mahnk as he grabbed a handhold and pulled himself higher up the granite slab for a better look.
“And who is up there firing them?” called Rika.
Darox tried to maneuver for a better look up at the cliffs too. “This is a psionic attack,” he said.
“You mean because it is making the bugs insane?” asked Mahnk.
“Psionic energy is not just mind voodoo, brother,” replied Darox. “It is a powerful physical force.”
Darox recalled the fearsome punch of psionic weaponry from his ADVENT days. His squad once deployed in a raid with a rare Elder escort to a rebel laboratory complex obviously considered a high-value target. The lab’s security team found out that Null Lance bolts—pure psionic energy—hit a lot harder than even a mag-slug.
“By the Elders, look at that!” cried Mahnk, slipping in an old ADVENT exclamation. “The bugs are shredded. Not one left standing.”
Darox caught a glimpse of movement high on the cliffs. But then his vision seemed to fog and spin. He braced himself on the slab and shook his head.
“I am seeing purple,” called Mahnk, dropping from his handhold.
Rika held her head with both hands. “What is this?”
And then, just as quickly, the haze cleare
d.
“That was a small dose of Mindfray,” said Darox, rubbing his temple. “Somebody who hates aliens has a basic mastery of psionics.” He looked over at Rika. “Amazingly, they have also channeled it into their guns.”
“They just saved our lives,” replied Rika.
“Yes.”
She knelt by Koros and bent over him.
“Let us hope they saved his life too,” she said.
Chryssalid poison was lethal given enough time to do its work. Koros needed medical care, fast. Suddenly, Darox heard Mox’s voice in his earpiece.
“Recon team, report!” he ordered. “What the hell is going on up there?”
“Massive engagement,” replied Darox. He provided a quick summary and added, “We have one down poisoned. Our medikits will not keep Koros breathing for long.”
Captain Thibideaux’s voice broke in. “Roger that, son, we got a Skyranger en route to your position for medical evacuation. Send up a smoke flare to guide her in.” After a pause, he added, “That sounded like a goddamned artillery barrage up there.”
Darox took a deep breath. “We have . . . unidentified heavy support units up on the ridge,” he said. “Clear signs of psionic amplification.”
“Psionic?” repeated Thibideaux. “Are you sure, son?”
“I am sure,” said Darox. “I will make a full report when we get back down.” As he stepped out of the boulder pile, he looked across the plateau. Three hooded humans were approaching. He said, “Recon, out.”
The one in the lead threw back her hood. With a thin smile, she held up her hand.
Darox said, “Mahnk, send up a smoke flare for the medevac.”
Reaching into his combat vest, Mahnk turned toward the trio, who stopped uncertainly twenty feet away. He pulled out a flare stick, held it up to show them, and smiled. Then he bowed deeply.
The Reapers nodded back.
Mahnk struck the flare’s flint end on a chunk of granite and pointed it skyward. Fireballs shot up and exploded into mushrooms of red smoke. Meanwhile, Darox handed his medikit over to Rika. He said, “Keep his heart beating while I talk to our new rifle team.”