The ethereal orb showed him things. Brutal, erratic, violent things, men and machines, men united with machines and then he knew. His mind went blank, but everything was crystal clear. The final assault would be carried out with the best of the best: 44, Goose, Ironside, Harmony Lad, Broden and Hipster. Two snipers would provide valuable firepower against anything and Hipster's proven heavy plasma gun should work possible sectopods. In addition, 44 was the only one to know the secrets of mind control, so he might be busy with other things than shooting aliens in the head.
Skyranger left the base and roared towards the Brazilian coast. The descent to the docking bay felt like neverending story.
[SKYRANGER CABIN TRANSCRIPTION]
Ironside: So...this is it. I hope, at least. It's not like they can hide much bigger ships like this on the face of Earth.
Harmony Lad: After this ends, I have deserved a bottle of vodka.
Hipster: I'm sure you can have two. Sauna?
Harmony Lad: Damn you. After this ends, I'll kick your ass too.
44: I hear voices. They are speaking to me.
Ironside: Well that was some change of topic.
Goose: No, he's right, I can hear voices too, but I can't unfortunately tell what they are saying.
44: I can. They are saying they are grateful I bring them new specimens and food.
Broden: You mean...
Ironside: I could have easily lived without that knowledge. But it will make a good story.
Pilot: Megawatt, Branca, Snake Catcher and other folks wish you luck, cutting the comms to base now. Ready for landing.
[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]
The "temple ship" as the abacus-wielders call it was about as huge as the biggest ship we had seen this far. It was impossible to tell any proportions of it, but 44 felt it's best to go with the flow. Wherever the voices take us, they'd go. The squad split in three pairs to cover all three entries and it did not take that long to reach the first action station as just after the first doors, some sectoids and thin men were found from the rooms beyond. Even two cyberdiscs appeared from out of nowhere, but snipers were ready and destroyed them before anyone could even react. The smaller aliens were quickly killed, along with a sectoid commander that got to taste its own medicine as Goose fried its brain good. Further down, a berserker came along with four muton elites.
[TACTICAL COMMS TRANSCRIPTION]
Goose: Backing off, we must ambush them in the corridor.
Broden: Aye aye, right side of the room seems clear, we keep the post by the slope. Here they come!
[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]
The berserker rushed down the slope straight into the arc of fire of both Broden and Hipster. Berserker got peppered and burned by alien metal and plasma so fiercely, that Broden had to squint his eyes in the heat. Still the berserker stood, and a fist size of a fridge slammed onto Hipster. While his previous experience with the berserker almost ended his life, the newly-built chitin plates absorbed majority of the damage. His ghost armor creaked, but held. After that Hipster gave the berserker a good plasma bath. The rest of the mutons were picked off one by one by snipers and Ironside finished the last one that was wandering across the slope in the middle of the room.
The next section seemed to be some kind of a split corridor with a huge hangar-like space in the middle, with a wide balcony overlooking it. The reason for the hangar became clear as two sectopods emerged. One was always bad news, but two sent the team scuttling for covers and tactical positions and still, there was not too much time to waste. Sectopods peppered the balcony already with their missiles and while there was no good positions available for the snipers, Ironside and Broden had to react. Goose got hit by the formidable red laser cannon and retreated to treat his wounds. For the first time, Ironside was thinking that maybe this will be a one-way trip after all. Brushing that thought aside, he jumped down the balcony, straight into the sectopods' crossfire. Having trained these maneuvers thousands of times, he barely ducked under the first blast, but the second caught him. His ultra heavy armor was almost completely vaporized, but he rushed on to take cover behind a large storage structure and pumped two quick shots at the first sectopod. It stood up, smoking, sending sparks flying around and its left side on fire.
Broden jumped down from the other side, but stumbled upon landing and barely managed to roll to take cover behind similar storage structure behind which Ironside was hiding. He could not take a shot at the still standing sectopod and there was another one somewhere behind it. The first one unloaded a full blast at Ironside. His armor was completely gone now, half of his exposed skin charred and it looked like he would be buried right there. For some reason, sectopod's second shot stroke the balcony with a loud crash and Broden could hear Hipster shouting orders.
Harmony Lad finished the first sectopod with his plasma pistol, that's all it really took. The second sectopod started shooting green bolts at the balcony in the wake of its now destroyed mechanical partner and it looked like the shots had caught both snipers and Hipster quite badly.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire it was for the folks at the balcony. Goose was already running low on the medical supplies while he had to bandage both 44 and Hipster. 44 was imperative to be kept alive for the squad's survival, but now there was no more medical supplies left. The beating the squad had taken already this far had taken its toll and more was coming. Hipster caught another blast and a good deal of him splattered Goose's armour.
[TACTICAL COMMS TRANSCRIPTION]
Goose: Hipster is down, take down that sectopod before it destroys the whole balcony!
Ironside: *groan* What do you thing we're trying to do, son?
Broden: On my mark, go!
*fierce alloy gun fire and an explosion*
[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]
Hipster was bleeding to death on the balcony and Goose fell to his knees to try to get him standing. Then came the mutons.
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