Christopher Ruz's Blog, page 8

Rust Launches! But… what IS Rust?

So I pushed the LAUNCH button on Rust Season 1, Episode 1 today. It's a pretty big moment for me. This story has been bouncing around in my head in various forms for years, and it's finally being let free, in an experimental format that could be a massive success or a colossal failure.

So I'm excited and scared and twitchy and most of all, forgetful. Because I've been talking about Rust for the past few months on Twitter, on Facebook, and on this blog, and I've only just realized that I haven't really explained yet what Rust is, or why a reader should bother with this story.

So.

In Rust, Kimberly Archer is pushed in front of a train in New York and wakes in the town of Rustwood, in bed with a strange man who claims to be her husband. She runs to the police but nobody will believe her story... nobody, aside from a strange man called Fitch.

Fitch claims that Rustwood is poisoned. That everyone in the town, himself included, died elsewhere before arriving... but that people forget, or refuse to see. That there's a beast at the heart of the town pulling everyone's strings, and that he's going to be the one to burn it out.

Fitch wants a war. Kimberly just wants to get home. They might escape if they worked together, but there are already creatures stalking them through the streets. People are vanishing fast in Rustwood, and they might be next...

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Rust is a small town horror story, heavily influenced by David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Stephen King, and Junji Ito. By small town, I mean that specific genre of horror where something truly horrible strikes a little innocent community, far away from the bright lights of the big city. It's about isolation, about secrets thought long buried, about conspiracies shared between regular people instead of powerful, mysterious businessmen in ivory towers. It's about being able to reach out and touch the villain at coffee shop, and about how the wilderness is never more than a mile away.

You can't hide in a small, rural town. All you can do is run.

The first season of Rust will be published episodically, starting right now and continuing throughout July. The first season is 55k words long, or the length of a short novel, and is divided into five roughly equally sized episodes. Whether future seasons are released episodically depends on reader's reactions to this first season.

For people who don't enjoy reading in short episodes, the entire season will be released as a single book shortly after the end of episode 5. So don't worry, everyone is catered for.

If you like the sound of Rust, check it out on Amazon and sign up to my mailing list - it's the best way to make sure you don't miss out on a single episode!

Dirty Deals is now free on Amazon!

I must've been napping when this price change came through, because Dirty Deals is now 100% free on Kindle. Yep, Amazon has given me the price match I always wanted.

So if you're a Kindler, jump in at the ground level and get your pew-pew on with Olesia Anderson's first adventure!

The Five Best Webcomics You Should Already Be Reading

I love webcomics. Well, I love comics regardless of medium, but I'm most closely in tune with webcomics seeing as I spend most of my working day in front of a PC. Loading up my webcomics tab at 6pm and watching Chrome chug and complain as those 60+ tabs spill across my screen marks the end of a hard day's work. Some would say I read too many webcomics. I'd say I don't read enough.

So now I'm sharing five of those great webcomics with you fine folk, and hopefully pick up some suggestions for new great reads. Here are my top five ongoing webcomics that you should already be reading (and if you aren't, begin now!)

Gunnerkrigg Court, by Tom Siddell

Gunnerkrigg Court is just flippin' wonderful. It's a science-fantasy epic that reads a little like Harry Potter with two female protagonists, except if Harry Potter was set in a world where Hogwarts was actually a bastion of scientific progress built a stone's throw away from a forest jam-packed with magic and mystery. The story is full of ghosts, dragons, minotaurs, smartarse fairies and cynical gods, but the real stars of the story are the two leads, Kat and Antimony. Antimony has a connection with the realm of mysticism, thanks to a childhood encounter with a hawk-headed god in a hospital, while Kat is a hands-on workshop girl, taking in her mother's footsteps as she unravels the elaborate tech that drives the mysterious Court.

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The pacing and character art of the first few chapters is a bit slow and rough, but it's impossible not be drawn into the enigmas of the Court and the tenuous balance between the high-tech university and the wild magic of the forest beyond the bridge, and the rapid evolution of the primary cast is stunning to watch. The visual humour is laugh-out-loud funny, and the artwork has evolved over the years from serviceable to stunning. Honestly, one of the best written and drawn comics anywhere, whether online or in print.

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Bad Machinery by John Allison

When John Allison's previous comic Scarygoround came to an end, I almost wept (manly tears, mind). Scarygoround was one of the cleverest, funniest, most idiosyncratic comics I'd ever read, and it updated with beautiful full-page colour spreads almost every day of the week. What's not to love?

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But Scarygoround ended, and Bad Machinery began. For a few months, I was wary. Then, once again, I fell in love. Bad Machinery isn't so much a new comic as a reimagining - the humour is still based in characters and dialogue instead of slapstick, the main cast are quirky, endearing but flawed, and there are still supernatural mysteries to solve... except now, our cast of heroes are all schoolchildren, and their mystery-solving all takes place within the framework of schoolyard relationships, 9pm curfews and damaged families.

It's wonderfully illustrated, the jokes are clever and the storylines weave and turn in unexpected directions. Flippin' Nora, you've no reason not to read Bad Machinery.

Octopus Pie, by Meredith Gran

Oh no, another slice of life comic about young, hip, attractive people! Oh no, another odd-couple mishap where two women of strong but divergent panels are forced to cohabit an apartment, and all the wacky hijinks that result!

Except that, against all odds, Octopus Pie transcends the cliches and quickly reveals itself to be an intelligent, touching, oft-times deeply affecting comic about love, identity, and family. Is it a soap opera? I suppose, but it's a smart soap, with characters built up strip by strip in marvellous layers.

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And when Octopus Pie isn't breaking your heart, it's devastatingly funny as well. Nobody forgets the first time they read the arc when Eve is asked to design a new ad campaign for her employer, Olly's Organix... and then accidentally submits her joke campaign to advertisers.

Octopus Pie. It's the fukken shit.

Akimbo Comics, by B Patrick

It's hard to describe Akimbo Comics, because B Patrick doesn't just draw one comic. He leaps around between an ever-expanding list of projects, ranging from absurdist noir fiction to Philip K Dickian scifi to the split-personality thriller Bob & Bob. His most regular updates are for Eat Shit and Die, an ongoing observational comic that functions (I think) as an authorial mouthpiece that lets B Patrick cut strips off the shallow selfishness of so many basic human interactions.

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His satire is laser-sharp and his art is vibrant and bold. And yet, somehow, B Patrick has yet to hit the really big time. I mean, he has a solid readership, but the fact that Akimbo Comics isn't discussed in the same breath as Charles Burns or Brian Wood is, in my mind, damn criminal.

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WARNING - The Akimbo Comics site is a pain in the arse to navigate. Clicking NEXT on any comic doesn't necessarily take you to the next comic in a particular storyline - instead, it takes you to the next comic B Patrick posted chronologically, which is frustrating considering he leaps between his many storylines with each post. As such, if you want to read through a single storyline, you have to use the list of comics in the righthand bar. FIX THIS PLEASE, B PATRICK.

Gunshow, by K.C. Green

You've already seen K.C. Green's work. I know you have. Panels and strips from Gunshow and his previous comic Horribleville circle the net in ever widening circles. Ever seen a reference to Dickbutt? That's K.C. Green. What about the Dark Homer saga? Or the hilarious long-form series The Anime Club? No?

Well, it's time to catch up.

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Firstly, and obviously, Gunshow is absurd. It revels in absurdity. It doesn't attempt to make sense and all it asks of you is that you don't expect coherence. But beneath the non-sequiter comedy and the cat stripclubs is a comic so pregnant with literary, historical and pop-culture allusions that you can only conclude that K.C. Green is a mad genius. I mean, who else would mash up Frasier with Edgar Allen Poe, or draw comics about Baby Rorschach?

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Read Gunshow. It's also the fukken shit.

- - -

So, those are my top five. In choosing them, I had to prune out a lot of fantastic ongoing comics, so if you think I've made a criminal omission then please leave a comment and tell me where I went wrong!

1st draft of Rust is complete!

The thing in Fitch's pocket was squeaking again. It was the smell of gasoline it didn't like; that, or the fumes rising off his home-brew jug of napalm. Shame there wasn't anywhere for the stink to go, down in the basement. Vents were all gummed up with leaves and dustbunnies. Besides, someone might notice if the smell got out then. A kid walking by on the mail run would raise his nose to the air and say, hey, something funny cooking down there. And the kid would tell their folks, and the folks would tell the police, and pretty soon he'd have the beast itself knocking on his door.

He patted his pocket with one hand and stirred the mix with the other. “Not long now,” he whispered. “Gonna make some fireworks tonight.”

I finished the first draft of Rust today. 55,000 words, to be released in five parts (but only once my test readers have given me the thumbs-up). I'm really excited, and hope to begin releasing the story within a few weeks. Part 1 of the serial will also be posted here for free, so keep checking back closer to release time.

Thanks to all my friends who have already helped shape Rust, and will continue to do so throughout the ongoing serial!

Rust: Cover Reveal!

My small-town horror serial Rust is almost ready for launch, and to celebrate I'm showing off the just-completed cover artwork. The artist, Etchpea/Capribebe (NSFW link), is not just absurdly talented but also a joy to work with, so I recommend you check out her work and drop her a line if you're in need of some high-quality art.

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With test-reader approval, Rust will launch as a 5-week serial within the next month! And if people like it, the series will continue for quite a while... this first chunk of Rust is only about 1/5th of the total story I have planned, and to realise my grand plans may take another four mini-serials over the next few years. So, keep an eye out!

XCOM: The B-Team, Chapter 8 – Operation Flying Fog

Disclaimer - this is fanfiction based on an ongoing game of XCOM, a turn based strategy game available for PC, PS3 and XBOX360. Everything that happens in these missions happened in my game. This is my real squad, my real B-Team. I invent nothing but the dialogue and external character arcs - I am, in essence, transcribing a videogame as it happens. When a character kills, is injured or dies, it happened in my game. There are no reloads and no cheating. All decisions are final.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4, part 1

Chapter 4, part 2

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7, part 1

Chapter 7, part 2

- - -

Chapter 8: Operation Flying Fog

“Do you know why you're here?”

Corporal Alan Zelman swallowed hard. He was seated in a stiff-backed chair, staring into a bright halogen light. Seated beyond the light was an XCOM-hired psychiatrist. Beyond him, armed guards, rifles trained on Zelman's chest.

His ankles and wrists were secured, not so tight that it hurt but tight enough that he couldn't stand or pull away. They'd fed him and given him water but when he'd asked to see the Commander he'd been met with blank stares. Even so, he suspected Commander Pournelle was somewhere close by. Standing behind the one-way mirror on the far wall, or watching through one of the many cameras mounted around the edge of the concrete chamber.

The psychiatrist coughed and repeated his question, his voice monotone. “Do you know why you're here?”

Zelman nodded. “I had... an episode.”

“And?”

“I shot a friendly.”

“Do you know why you had this episode?”

Zelman began to shake his head, then reconsidered. “Might've just... flipped out. You know, because of-”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you angry at Squaddie Faber?”

“No.”

“Then why'd you shoot her?”

“Because I thought...” Zelman sighed. He had an itch above his left eye but he couldn't scratch it, not with his hands secured to the chair. Sweat was running down his forehead and beading on the end of his nose. “Look, is this really necessary?”

The psychiatrist leaned back, chair creaking, pen clenched between his teeth. “Why don't we start from the beginning? The landing.”

Alan Zelman closed his eyes. “Sure. The landing.

“The UFO was huge. Biggest we'd ever seen, crossing Canada from west to east. Came down just outside Ottowa. Captain Huang and Lieutenant Shephard were leading. Me, Sullivan and Wise close behind. The new girl, Faber, she stayed at the back. She's a sniper specialist, so Captain Huang figured there wasn't any reason to throw her into the shit just yet. We landed about half a klick from the UFO, but the bastards were coming at us before we were even off the back tray.”

The psych paused. “Bastards?”

“The X-rays.”

“You're still angry.”

“Wouldn't you be?”

The psych clicked his pen. “Do you miss your sister?”

What sort of a question was that? He missed her every fucking day. Hour by hour, since the moment they'd brought her off the Skyranger in a body bag. Operation Cold Shield. Too clinical of a name. Every time he heard it his gut clenched. The Commander said that losing one soldier that day had been 'acceptable losses'. For him, it'd been the day the world split in two.

But all he said was, “Yeah.”

“Do you blame your comrades for what happened that day?”

“They did their best.”

“No resentment?”

“I know what you're trying to do, but I'm telling you the truth. I didn't shoot Faber for any real reason. I just... did it.”

The psych nodded. “Tell me about the attack.”

Corporal Zelman closed his eyes and remembered. The UFO squatting at the far end of the field, leaving a trail of burning grass and mutilated livestock in its wake. The back tray down, revealing a cavernous interior, lights flickering on strange consoles. And the creatures pouring out, the thin men, those spindly imitation humans with their neat blue suits formed from skin and their sunglasses of bone.

They'd come from the ship in a wave, scuttling from the shadows, plasma rifles in hand. The first sizzle of energy boiled past Zelman's head, close enough that the echo of air igniting left a ringing in his ears. Captain Huang had motioned for them to get low, to fire, fire, fire...

“It was a slaughter,” he said.

“Were any of you hurt?”

“Not that I saw. They got close, I know that. Sullivan nearly lost his head, but we poured it on. I swear, they were dying on the ramp.”

“How many did you hit?”

He remembered a black and white detective film he'd seen as a child, flickering on the old CRT his parents kept in the dining room. A man in a slouched hat and duster stepping nonchalantly through a crime scene, nostrils flared, inhaling gunsmoke. “Smell the cordite?” he'd said. “That's the smell of death.”

Cordite. A hard word, raw edged, dangerous and romantic. It set up root in his brain. He imagined striding across war-torn fields and sucking down lungfuls of cordite, the remnants of battle fizzing in his sinuses. It wasn't until years later that Zelman learned how cordite was old tech, superseded by the beginning of the Second World War. An anachronism that refused to die. But even so, when he walked into battle and all his fellow soldiers were hosing the enemy with laser fire and plasma, he was still shooting real bullets. When held down the trigger on his LMG on that field outside Ottowa, the gun bucking and spitting fire, shell casings plinking off his armour, the smell of hot brass making him dizzy, thin men cut in half by his bullets, their slick yellow blood misting the air, he'd felt like a battlefield God. The God of Cordite.

“Don't remember,” he said. “Lost count.”

“Your chestcam recorded five definite kills. Three with a rocket.”

Zelman shrugged. “Couldn't forget the rocket. They were all hiding behind a log together. Bad place to hide.”

“Twelve corpses were retrieved from the field in total.”

“That's your count. I just kept shooting. If they didn't want to get blown away, they shouldn't have gotten in my face.”

“Did you feel bad for them?”

Zelman paused. “Excuse me?”

“The thin men,” the psych said. “They were outclassed, in hardware and tactics. That was a banzai charge. Did you feel any sympathy?”

“Fuck no,” Zelman growled.

“But they were dying-”

“I'd kill every fucker there myself if they'd give me the bullets,” he said.

The psychiatrist nodded slowly. “Twelve thin men dead, no injuries. What next?”

“We regrouped, reloaded, scouted the perimeter. Nothing else moving out there, so Huang led the team in. He kept Vandal up front. You know those two.” The psych didn't reply. “Huang and 'Vandal' Shephard? Always flirting? No?”

“I haven't spent any time with Lieutenant Shephard,” the psych replied. “By all reports she's a capable, well balanced soldier.”

Zelman tried to decide whether the psych was being sarcastic, but he couldn't make out the man's eyes, not through the hard glare of the lamp and the man's insect-lens glasses. “Whatever you say. Well, she and Huang were being real cautious. We took our time. Shephard and Huang were joking about taking each other home to meet their folks for Christmas or something... Did you know Shephard sings?”

“As I said, I've never met with Lieutenant Shephard.”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember. Well. We worked through the whole ship like that. Silent, I swear. Nothing moving in that place. Like their whole force was that banzai wave of thin men. Or maybe those guys were just left behind to distract us while the rest of the force split off into the fields. Lights were mostly off, so we worked by feel. Spooky place, a UFO with no lights. That was some serious Giger shit. But still, couldn't see anything moving, and I was starting to think it was already over. And then-”

At the end of the final corridor, they'd found the door of light, so tall it reached the ceiling. Sounds beyond, whispers, guttural. Afraid. Huang motioned for them to set up on either side of the barrier. The steady click click click as they all reloaded, recharged, flipped their tripods. Zelman's LMG still hot in his hands, the barrel glowing very faintly in the darkness of the UFO corridor with the heat of all the rounds he'd fired into those bastard thin men.

Huang gave the signal, and Zelman waved one hand through the wall of light – the command they'd learned would open the doors. The light fading, and on the far side...

“What did you see?”

“Two of the commanders,” Zelman replied. “The sectoids with the swollen heads. You know them?”

“I've heard of them.”

Zelman raised one eyebrow. “You're the company psych. Shouldn't you have done your homework?”

“We're not here to talk about me, Corporal. What did you do?”

“Nothing. Not at first. They were ready for us. Door opened and they were already firing. Plasma in the air like fireworks. Sullivan got hit. I saw him get knocked down. I know he's been through a lot, I swear he shouldn't even be out on those missions... he cracks easy. So when he got shot he just started screaming, flipping his shit. And Shephard, she goes nuts as well. She's shouting 'we're dead, we're all dead, we have to get out'... Everyone's frozen. They've fucked us up real bad. We need cover, so Wise drops a smoke grenade. I can't see shit any more. I'm coughing, I'm crying from the smoke stinging my eyes, there's plasma so close it's burning my beard.”

“And then?”

They'd arrived at the part of the conversation that Zelman had been dreading. “You know what happened.”

“Tell me. Take your time.”

“I can't explain it! It just happened!”

“Then tell me how it 'just happened.'”

“You...” Zelman sighed. “You know how in dreams, everything makes sense at the time? You're in your bedroom and you step out the door into a jungle and you just...”

“Believe?”

“Yeah. You fill in the gaps. So I was outside the door looking in through the smoke, trying to lock down the two X-rays, and then there was a light.”

“A light? How so?”

“Like someone set off a flash right behind my eyes. And then... the X-rays were with me. They just jumped through the doorway. One second there, one second not. And Sullivan and Wise and all the others were inside the door now, and they were shouting at me, shoot them, shoot them-”

“Your comrades and the aliens switched places?”

“Yeah. And it just made sense. They were there, and then they were over there. Dream logic. And I wanted to kill them. Serious scorched earth. And I was already getting ready to shoot, because I couldn't not, you know? It just made sense.”

The pen scratched incessantly. “So you shot Sniper Specialist Faber.”

“I didn't know it was her! She looked like-”

“But you still shot her.”

“Yeah. Twice. Third time missed.”

“Do you regret that?”

“Fuck do you think?” Zelman's hands clenched into tight fists in his lap. “The other X-rays were running. I saw one sprint out of the cloud...”

It'd all made sense once he'd returned to base and they'd shown him the replay recorded on their chest-cams. Lieutenant Wise abandoning the protective smokescreen and sprinting through a field of plasma fire into the control chamber with Captain Huang at his back. Huang firing his sniper rifle from the hip, blowing a hole through the commander so huge you could see light through the other side. Wise putting his rifle to the injured alien's head before it could recover and turning its skull to mush.

“There was fighting inside the room,” he said. “I saw two of the X-rays shoot Sullivan in the face. But then I blinked, and it was like... waking up. And I realised that I had it all backwards. Sullivan was still freaking out in the corner, and Faber was screaming because I'd hit her in the shoulder.”

“You understood-”

“Like that.” Zelman snapped his fingers. “I don't know what pulled me out of it. But I was angry. Real angry. So I charged in there, right after Wise and Huang. Only one X-ray left. Little arsehole hiding in the back. He was moving to shoot me, I think, but I was too quick. Got my gun and jammed it right up in his face.”

“And?”

That memory, at least, was still vivid. The feel of the trigger resisting the pressure of his finger. The LMG kicking back against his shoulders. The hot splash of gore on his cheeks.

“I killed it,” he said flatly. “Done and done.”

The psychiatrist turned, as if receiving instructions from some hidden earpiece. Then he set his pen and paper down. “What happened after that?”

“Huang brought me down,” Zelman replied. “Tackled me so hard it bruised. They dragged me back to the Skyranger and left me there while they completed the sweep. I don't blame them. Faber looked more scared of me than the aliens.”

“Do you harbour any resentment towards her?”

“Hell no! Don't know much about her but I hear she's a good soldier. Put three or four chryssalids down in an op last month. That's good odds.”

“What about Captain Huang?”

Zelman shrugged. “I would've tackled me too. Hell, I would've used the taser.”

“Do you think you need treatment? A break? Was this battle fatigue, or-”

“All things considered, I'd prefer the opportunity to kill more X-rays.” Zelman looked to the window at the back of the chamber. “Sir.”

The psych nodded. “I think we're done here. Thank you for your time, Corporal.”

He pressed a button beneath the table, and four security staff came through the door. They loosened the restraints on the chair long enough to get Alan Zelman's hands behind his back, and snapped the cuffs tight.

As they marched him out of the room and down to the concrete chambers that doubled as the XCOM brig, Zelman whispered to the psych out of the corner of his mouth. “Apologise to Faber for me.”

After that, he had a long time to sit alone with his thoughts.

#

“Your conclusions?”

The psychiatrist swallowed nervously. He'd been with XCOM for two months but Pournelle still terrified him. Something about the way the Commander stared at him, eyes half-lidded, so still it almost looked like he wasn't breathing. An automaton dressed in flesh.

“Corporal Zelman isn't insane, Commander. And it wasn't a fugue state. I suspect that what occurred was similar to what happened to the soldier who killed Corporal Lebedev during first contact.”

“What, he was hypnotised?”

“He mentioned seeing a bright light before the event, and we've seen the X-rays communicate with each other using something similar. Perhaps this is the same?”

“Mind control?”

“A form of telepathy, yes.”

Pournelle folded his hands before him on the table. “Lingering effects?”

“None that I could see. I believe the link was severed the instant the controlling alien was killed.”

“That's no reason not to be cautious. We'll keep him under observation for the next week, see how he behaves.” Pournelle sucked air over his teeth. “It's not the idea of losing a soldier that worries me. It's what the bastards could learn with five minutes inside one of their heads. There's too much to lose.”

“Is there anything...”

“No. I have this under control.” Pournelle snatched up the phone. “Major? Yes, we need to talk. New protocols for enemy engagements. Yes. Yes. No, it regards friendly fire.” A pause. “Specifically, returning friendly fire. Yes, I understand that. I don't care if you're uncomfortable with the subject. Ready room, ten minutes.” He slammed the phone down and sighed. “This job never gets any easier, you know?”

“Of course, sir.” The psychiatrist swallowed again. It felt like there was a lump of glue jammed in his throat. “I meant to ask... I have leave coming up. Two weeks with my family? I just need a signature on-”

“Leave is cancelled, young man.” Commander Pournelle was already shuffling papers, his attention elsewhere. “Put your application in again when this is all over.”

“That might be years away, sir.”

“Might be never. Come on, kid. You didn't think you could take a holiday from a war?”

The psychiatrist nodded slowly. “Of course, sir. I just... sorry. I'll get out of your way.”

Pournelle ushered him out the door without glancing up, and the psych was relieved when Pournelle's office door finally clicked closed behind him. There were two guards flanking the door, rifles in hand, and they made sympathetic noises as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Commander's in a mood, huh?”

The psychiatrist nodded. “There were... developments.”

“Always developments,” the soldier said. “You better get out of here before he get a real temper.”

The psych was halfway down the hall when he reconsidered and turned back. The two soldiers looked up as he approached. “When was the last time you got official leave?” he asked.

The soldiers stared blankly. “Leave?” one said.

“This is wartime,” the other said.

“But I'm not enlisted. I'm here on contract. My wife expects me home in-”

“Better send her an apology,” the first soldier said. “Word is, nobody leaves HQ unless they're out to kill.”

“So when do I-”

The soldier shrugged. “Sorry, buddy. All in it together, right?”

There was nothing the psych could do but keep his mouth shut and walk away alone, into the cold concrete bowels of XCOM Headquarters.

- - -

Author's Note:

This chapter was really fun to write, and I think I'll be experimenting with the format of The B-Team more often now. Operation Flying Fog was the first chapter of what I consider the second half of the game, and also the first mission I played with the increased difficulty. I'll warn everyone in advance... things got messy, fast. The next few missions were nothing but tragedy after tragedy. You're in for quite a ride.

As always, thanks for reading, and check out some of my other projects (linked in the sidebar) if you'd like to support this ongoing project!

My Five Greatest Pieces of Videogame Music

I love videogames, and I love videogame music. Just like great moments in film and the way the soundtrack enhances and fuses with the action, there's something about the experience of playing a game that ties the experience to the soundtrack and binds the two together in your memory. Whistle the victory melody from Final Fantasy 7 in any crowded room, or the main theme from Super Mario Bros, and see how many people respond. As many as would if you whistled Rebel Blockade Runner by John Williams, AKA the Star Wars theme? Or more?

I wish I could analyse the greatest pieces of gaming music with a more professional air, but I'm no music expert and all I can offer are my personal opinions. As such, here are my top five pieces of game music from the past few decades.

1) Phendrana Drifts, from Metroid Prime

The Metroid series has featured some pretty iconic musical pieces throughout its twenty-seven year history, but those themes reached a sublime peak (IMO) with Metroid Prime, a game that not only reinvigorated the franchise but also reinterpreted and updated many of the classic SNES themes to stunning effect.

Stepping out on to the icy plains of Phendrana for the first time was a jawdropping moment, but exploring those snow-packed peaks and foreboding chasms wouldn't have been half as wondrous without this composition. It's subtle, mysterious, and yet lively enough to drive you on into the ice wastes.

Bonus - this instrumental metal cover by Stemage is soothing, yet also rockin'. No complaints:

2) The Opened Way, from Shadow of the Colossus.

The Opened Way is one of many spectacular tracks from Shadow of the Colossus, and choosing any single song to represent what is (IMO) one of the greatest videogames of all time was quite a trial. Composer Kow Otani has spent over twenty five years crafting soundtracks for games, film and anime, but his work on SotC is undoubtedly some of his best.

What adds to the grandeur of Kow's orchestral soundtrack is that Shadow of the Colossus is largely a quiet game. There's no music playing as you explore the vast world of SotC - just the sound of hoofbeats, and you calling for your horse. This sweeping, heart pounding score is your reward for finally locating and fighting one of the titular colossi. As such, each and every track is distinct and unforgettable.

Thank you, Kow.

3) Setting Sail, Coming Home, from Bastion

When the first previews for Bastion were released, people were amazed by the hand-painted art and the introduction of an omnipresent narrator. Few people were prepared for a multi-award winning soundtrack by composer Darren Korb, which became so popular that the developers eventually released the complete soundtrack as a limited edition CD (which completely sold out, of course).

Setting Sail, Coming Home is a great song even out of context, but a real tear-jerker when you hear it for the first time in game. You have few friends in Bastion, and each NPC character has their own distinct, soulful theme music. Setting Sail, Coming Home is a combination of two of those themes, the lyrics of two opposing characters suddenly intertwined as they face up to the consequences of their actions.

Full marks, Darren.

4) Wind Waker Theme, from Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

I should point out that there's no BAD Zelda theme, but everybody has a personal favourite theme, and it's almost always their first encounter with the series. I never owned a SNES or 64, so Wind Waker was my first proper Legend of Zelda title, and it still occupies a special place in my heart. That endless ocean! The freedom of setting out across the waves, headed for a tiny speck on the horizon! The terror when a storm started and threatened to tip your boat, and the relief when morning came and brought back the sun!

Unforgettable. If they change a single dang note of that song for the upcoming WiiU HD re-release, I'll flip a table.

Bonus: This orchestral remix by Hyperduck Soundworks is the most uplifting rendition I've ever found. It hasn't left my iPod in over a year.

5) E1M1, from Doom

E1M1 (Episode 1, Mission 1). For many people, this song accompanied their first glimpse of the future of gaming. Never mind the fact that the melody was ripped from Metallica, E1M1 was the musical embodiment of Doom - hard rock riffs mashed up against anarchic electronica, raw and pulsing, blended perfectly with the cries of the damned and the roar of your shotgun. It's not "beautiful" like many other pieces I've listed here, but it is absolutely iconic.

E1M1 has been remixed and covered more times than I can count, so I'll just leave you with this sweet cover by Evil Horde.

There were ten or so other songs I really wanted to put on this list, but I couldn't keep writing forever. So, what'd I overlook? What songs should go into part 2? Drop me your feedback below!

XCOM: The B-Team, Chapter 7 part 2 – Operation Lone Mountain

Disclaimer - this is fanfiction based on an ongoing game of XCOM, a turn based strategy game available for PC, PS3 and XBOX360. Everything that happens in these missions happened in my game. This is my real squad, my real B-Team. I invent nothing but the dialogue and external character arcs - I am, in essence, transcribing a videogame as it happens. When a character kills, is injured or dies, it happened in my game. There are no reloads and no cheating. All decisions are final.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4, part 1

Chapter 4, part 2

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7, part 1

- - -

Chapter 7: Operation Lone Mountain

It wasn't so much a smattering of gunfire as an eruption.

The six XCOM soldiers lined up along the back wall of the chamber opened fire as one, the electric sizzle of lasers lost entirely beneath the boom and rattle of Lieutenant White's LMG. Lieutenant Chi just kept her head down and tightened her aim. The trigger was warm beneath her gloved finger. It understood her. When she tugged, it obeyed.

Her first shot missed the floating disc by an inch, and in the time it took to reload Rudd and Lewis had begun sweeping it with laser fire, burning it out of the air. The disc dipped beneath the impact, spun away from their beams, and fired back.

“Down, down!” Rudd called, but even as he was ducking the plasma slammed him to the floor. Chi saw splintered armour plating and smoke wending upward from Rudd's gut, but she couldn't move from her position, not without losing her perfect field of fire.

“Medic!” she called, but Wise was fifty yards away, pinned behind a balustrade as the mutons swept him with plasma fire. It might as well have been fifty miles. “Ace!” she called. “Move on three!”

'Ace' Wise nodded, and Chi counted down fast as she fixed her aim on the first of the two mutons, settling her crosshairs just below the scaly asshole's eyes. She exhaled. Her finger danced on the trigger.

She fired, and the muton's skull sheared in two like it'd been struck by the fist of God. Wise popped out of his cover, laser rifle flashing, and the second muton fell back screeching.

“Put it down, put it down!” Young turned his laser rifle on the muton, and in the strobe-flash of his fire Chi saw the creature shear down the middle, its armour melting beneath the onslaught. The air filled with the sweet smell of barbecued pork and Chi's aim wavered as she inhaled the smoke.

Three chryssalids still coming, and the disc-sentry was still coming, sweeping rapidly from left to right across the chamber. It ducked and wove like a linebacker, skipping between Lewis's laser fire almost too fast to believe.

Almost. Chi didn't bother pressing her eye to the scope. She led the disc on instinct, her finger tense on the trigger, and fired. The rifle bucked against her shoulder hard enough to bruise, but the explosive pang of steel on steel was worth it. The disc wobbled, tumbled, and shed sparks as it hit the floor. Its steel panels flapped spasmodically, little black gunbarrels retreating inside the carapace. Then it kicked once more, spat fire, and fell still.

“Spiders, coming in fast!” That was 'Crater' White, hosing the back wall of the chamber like he had ammo to spare. The three chryssalids were scrambling over each other in their eagerness, and even when Crater's wild fire chopped one out of the air the others clawed their way over their companion's body. Rudd was down and Wise was up to his elbows in blood as he tried to stem the bleeding, which left Young, Chi and Lewis to stem the tide.

The two chryssalids jumped the ruined hulk of the disc. They dripped acid-yellow ichor from their jaws as they clacked and clattered, and through the scope of her rifle Chi could swear she saw a sickly intelligence behind their alien eyes.

She sighted and pulled the trigger.

The bolt caught. Magazine empty. Chi felt her stomach drop away. “Out, I'm out!” she called, yanking the magazine and fumbling at her belt for another. Young was down on one knee, raking the X-rays with laser fire, and one of the chryssalids split down the middle like overripe fruit. But the last of the three was still coming, a silhouette of claws and shadow.

Lewis ducked out from his alcove and swept the last of the chryssalids, his laser rifle hissing steam as it vaporised the water in the air, but even with its guts hanging loose around its legs it kept on coming, tearing itself apart as it hauled its carcass across the steel floor.

Chi's spare magazine wouldn't fit. She rammed it up into her rifle but something had jammed. There was no list of curses long enough in English, and she spat epithets in French as she let the magazine fall to the floor.

Her left hand found her pistol and slid it from the holster, tugging free of butter-smooth leather. The chryssalid loomed closer, claws scraping on steel. Its guts were knotted, leaking black fluid with every step, but it never slowed. Its two claw-arms swept up, lights gleaming on serrated bone.

Chi brought her pistol up, sighted, and fired.

The pistol bucked as she squeezed the trigger, three quick shots echoing off the riveted walls. The first two shots were wide but the third took the chryssalid in the right eye, leaving a bloodied hole so wide Chi could see clear through to the far side.

The creature skittered across the floor, legs splayed, canting drunkenly as its brain shut down cell by cell. Its claw-arms came up, and Chi threw herself aside, expecting the spider-thing to cut her in half, to live on even though it was missing half its head. But the creature only sighed, gases hissing through the rent in its skull, and collapsed to the floor.

Chi stood slowly, pistol held tight in both hands. The chryssalid lay still at her feet.

She put the rest of the magazine into its head just to make sure.

When the last echo of gunfire had faded she turned to the remainder of the crew. White had slammed a fresh magazine into his LMG and was walking the perimeter of their little basecamp, while Young and Wise were still crouched over Rudd. Captain Rudd's face was deathly pale, his right hand clenching and unclenching inside his heavy gloves as Wise injected anticoagulants deep into his chest.

Chi knelt beside them, her pistol still smoking in her hands. “Is he okay?”

“Fingers crossed,” Wise said, not even glancing up from his work.

“You see the size of the hole?” White called. “The Captain is fucked.”

“Don't count him out. Santa's tough.” But Sergeant Wise didn't look so sure as he sounded. His forehead dripped sweat as he yanked the last of his bandages tight. “Captain, you hear me?”

Rudd blinked slowly, lizardlike. “Sergeant?”

“We got you, Captain. You gotta hold-”

“I know the drill,” Rudd whispered. He folded both hands over the bandages and squeezed. “Apply pressure and wait for evac. Do the fucking job, Sergeant!”

Wise nodded. His adam's apple bobbed. Then he stuffed the remainder of his hypodermics back into his medic's satchel and snatched up his rifle.

“You heard the Captain. We're moving on!” Wise met Captain Young's eyes, and the two men nodded to each other, communicating without a word. Wise turned to Chi. “Got my back, Alpha?” he said.

Lieutenant Chi dared a grin. “All the way, Ace.”

“Then let's move.”

#

It hurt Sergeant Wise to leave Captain Rudd behind, but he'd seen more of the man's injuries than anyone and knew the old bastard would live if they had him on a Skyranger within an hour. So long as he kept pressure on the gaping hole in his chest and didn't pass out...

But Wise knew the math. If they stopped the infiltration to drag Rudd to safety, whoever was running the base would have enough time to evac themselves. Then they'd set up base somewhere else, vacuum up more civilians, burn whole cities. Leave townships as craters of ash.

Rudd was a small price to pay, in the end.

Wise stayed up front as Captain 'Cash' Young led the way into the bowels of the base. The five remaining soldiers moved close together, Chi bringing up the rear, their footfalls echoing strangely off organic curves of steel. They passed through doors that opened like irises, snicking closed behind them, like airlocks forcing them deeper and deeper into the bunker, one hatch at a time.

The corridors wound down, and down, and further still, until Wise began to wonder whether he'd ever feel sunlight on his skin again. His rifle shook in his hands as they stepped through another silken iris. The air didn't taste like rot any more. It tasted electric, a charge tingling on the back of his tongue. Like plasma vapour.

“I don't wanna die down here,” he whispered.

White was by his side, lugging his LMG, sweat shining on his brow. “You're not gonna die.”

“That's what they all say.”

“What they all say doesn't count for shit.” White stopped, panted, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “You know what, Wise?”

“What?”

“They need to put wheels on this thing.”

“Why don't you mount it on a bicycle?”

“It'd overbalance. Need a baby carriage.”

“Bring a go-kart, then. You can be our mounted cavalry.”

“I'll put it in Pournelle's suggestion box... holy shit.”

They'd stepped through a tall door into a chamber the size of a football stadium. The ceiling arched far overhead, revealing walkways and balustrades, a balcony on the second floor glowing with the light of holographic consoles.

There were no further doors, no other exits. The heart of the base, Wise realised. This was their neural hub, their command centre. And somewhere behind the consoles would be the X-ray Commander, their own Pournelle.

Chi dropped to one knee and swept the chamber through her scope. “Two mutons at the base of that pedestal... thing,” she whispered. “Two hundred meters.”

Young was by her side, watching through his own scope. “Armed?”

“Heavily.”

“Anything else?”

“Something moving behind the pedestal. It looks like... What the fuck?”

Wise peered through the scope on his laser rifle. He'd recognised the silhouette at the far end of the chamber and thought it only another sectoid, one of the bobble-headed bastards who'd gunned Nyssa Zelman down so many months before, but now that he saw it moving he realised it was subtly different. Its skull was somehow larger, swollen, and there was an electrical glow behind its eyes, a flare of phosphorescence.

He remembered where he'd seen a creature like that before. The chest-cam footage recovered from the very first contact. Corporal Lebedev and Ramirez getting torn apart by X-rays in a dim warehouse on the outskirts of Hamburg.

And now, they'd found the bastard.

His finger was already on the trigger when Young grabbed his shoulder. “Alive! We need it alive!”

Wise growled. “Whatever you say, boss. How'd you want this done?”

“We need those two pinned.” Young pointed out the mutons circling the pedestal. “Shredded if possible. I'll take the leader myself.” He patted the arc thrower hanging on his belt. “Crater, you blow the one on the left. Full artillery. Alpha, Ace, hammer the one on the right. Devil-Dog, watch the rear. No idea if there's any more coming through the pipes, and I don't want to be surprised. See that ramp?” He pointed to the incline leading up to the control console far overhead. “I'll go up, come off the far side and stun the leader from behind. He'll never know what hit him.”

“Sir!” 'Crater' White unslung his rocket launcher and fitted an explosive into the tube. “Just give the word.”

“No better time than now,” Young said, and ran.

For a moment Wise was frozen, watching his Captain sprint up the ramp and into the shadows. He could almost hear Young's brass balls clanging together as he reached the peak and vanished into the shadows. Then White's rocket-launcher roared, and the two mutons turned in surprise just in time for the sucker on the left to disappear behind a cloud of flame and shrapnel.

“Take 'em down!” White called, but Wise was already firing, spraying the second muton with laser fire. The beast stumbled, its weapon almost slipping from its hands, and managed to crawl behind a barricade. Wise's laser scattered harmlessly off the steel.

Up top, Young was a blur behind the hologram shimmer of the consoles. He was still running fast, and the sectoid commander didn't seem to have noticed him yet. “Couple seconds more!” Wise called. “Chi, can you hit that thing?”

Chi was already folding out her bipod. “On it,” she muttered, one eye pressed to the socket of her scope. A quick exhalation. A click. A crack of gunfire. “Missed.”

The black cloud left by Crater's rocket was clearing and Wise could make out something moving at the centre. The muton was on its knees, bleeding, dragging its guts behind it along the floor, but still alive, raising its plasma rifle to bear.

Wise's rifle gave a sad little hum as the battery depleted. He ejected, letting it hit the floor, and slammed a new battery home. “What's it take to kill these bastards?”

“I'm on it!” Chi reloaded and fired again. “Fuck! Missed!”

“Stop screwing around!” The muton's rifle flashed, and Wise leaped back as plasma burred past his shoulder. “Down, down!”

It was little consolation, but at least the X-rays were concentrating on him and not Captain Young. 'Cash' was a silhouette far overhead, and Wise held his breath as the Captain hung off the railing of the balcony, lowering himself to ground level, out of sight of the sectoid commander. Almost there, Wise thought. Just a few more seconds...

Captain Young dropped, a solid thud echoing around the chamber as ceramic armour met steel plating. The sectoid commander spun, his huge head bobbing on his tiny shoulders, and screeched like a cat dropped into cold bathwater.

The alien didn't even have time to fire. Young rolled as he hit the hit the floor and came up with his arc thrower in both hands. There was a lightning flash, the crackle of burning flesh, and the X-ray dropped face-first.

“It's down!” Young called, scurrying for cover behind one of the steel barriers. “It's-”

The plasma flare was searingly bright, like staring into the sun. Wise hadn't even seen the second muton turning – one moment the X-ray was pinned and the next it was on its feet, rifle in hand, fire boiling across the length of the chamber. Young screamed as he fell, tumbling mid-stride, hands flung out before him. Then he landed behind the barricade and vanished from sight.

Wise's stomach knotted in panic. “Get the Captain, get him out of there!” He raked the muton with laser fire but the alien was already scampering away behind solid cover. “Chi, hit the goddamn thing!”

“On it!” Sweat gleamed on Chi's brow as she lined up her shot. “Breathe... breathe...”

The crack of gunfire echoed around the vast chamber, and the muton behind the barricade collapsed in a spray of bone and blood. That only left the muton half-shredded by White's rocket, somehow still crawling on hands and knees, stitching the ceiling with mis-aimed plasma fire.

“I've got it!” White had ditched the empty rocket-launcher tube in favour of his massive LMG. He braced against the back wall of the chamber and hosed the last muton, ricochets pinging off the steel floor like fireworks. But the muton kept crawling despite the heavy fire, and its own wild plasma bursts were inching lower, blowing fat holes out of the walls less than a meter over Wise's head.

Now or never, he thought. He had to move.

“Keep him pinned!” Wise called to White, and dashed across the open chamber. The muton saw him coming but Tama Wise already had his rifle up against his shoulder. He pulled the trigger, waiting for the laser flash that would take the muton's head off.

Nothing happened. He glanced down and saw the charge light blinking. Another dead battery.

Wise didn't break his stride. He let the rifle fall clattering on the floor and drew his pistol. His gloves were slick with blood and sour alien mucus and when he tried to pull the trigger his finger slipped. Exhaustion that had left him broken but he knew what he had to do.

His aim was true. White had let off the LMG fire long enough for Wise to close the gap. He pressed the barrel against the creature's temple.

“Ciao, Uso,” he said, and fired.

#

It was only hours later, as Pournelle was pinning the badge on the lapel of his uniform jacket, that the echo of the gunshot began to fade.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant Wise.” Pournelle stepped back. The handshake was brief and professional. “XCOM thanks you for your service.”

“Sir.” Wise blinked. He was standing in the briefing room on the second floor of XCOM HQ, but he couldn't remember how he'd gotten there. His right hand was still curling unconsciously into firing position, gripping an invisible pistol, finger on a non-existent trigger.

“You've done something incredible,” Pournelle said. The commander's eyes were sunken by exhaustion but there was a smile dancing on his lips. “The thing you brought in? The commander? We're already learning from it. This may be a turning point in the war.”

Wise nodded automatically. “Sir.”

“Get some rest. You've earned it.” A pat on the shoulder. A quick squeeze. “At ease, Lieutenant.”

And that was that. Pournelle turned on his heel and walked out, and Wise exited out the other door, talking the long, lonely walk to the elevators that would take him down to the barracks. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and every footstep echoed strangely off the concrete walls. The world seemed muted, the volume knob stuck on one, cotton wool jammed in his ears.

And then he passed the shrine, and stopped dead.

The shrine was just a corkboard propped on a ledge along one wall of the corridor, just outside the mess hall. A simple thing, those few colour photos pinned there oddly out of place against the grey concrete wall, the concrete ceiling, concrete floor.

He'd walked past those photos more times than he could count, but he never stopped to really look at them. It was easier not to. Easier to pretend certain things hadn't gone down the way they had.

Ramirez, Lebedev and Hashimoto. Nyssa Zelman. Lucien Hickman. Jake Solomon. Six names, six photographs. Six that could become eight if Young and Rudd didn't pull through. They were still in surgery, getting stitched and sutured and cauterised. Medics said Young was 50/50. Rudd, somewhat less.

He remembered how close the muton's wild fire had been to his head. The claw of a chryssalid sweeping down. A matter of inches, every time.

And somehow, he knew things were only going to get worse.

Someone was laughing in the mess hall. The crew that hadn't been on the Skyranger, watching Young and Rudd bleed out. Huang, Shephard, Richardson, Nyssa Zelman's brother Alan, Gollnick... Wise knew they'd all been there, under fire, but somehow Wise felt apart from them all. In a day he'd be one of the crew again, but for now he still had gore dried on his boots. The pin on his lapel was oddly heavy. It still didn't feel like he'd done anything to deserve it. And yet...

He brushed the bank of photos with numb fingers. “For you, guys,” he said, and marched on, towards the laughter and the light.

- - -

Author's Note:

PHEW. The end of Chapter 7 is a major milestone in the story of The B-Team (those who've played XCOM understand why). Things are only going to get worse from here, because I'm ramping up the in-game difficulty to compensate for how well things have gone so far. I mean, three deaths outside the tutorial level? That's barely a warm-up!

A couple thousand people have read through The B-Team already, and I thank each and every one of you for sticking with me so far. It's hard to believe, but chapters 1-7 total 36,000 words, which is longer than any of my Olesia Anderson novellas. So if you've read this far and would like to support me, why not do me a favour and give my Olesia Anderson series a go? The latest entry, Burning Bridges, is pretty much a stand-alone story! For $2.99 you get 35,000 words of espionage, sex, gunfights, double-crosses and beautiful scenery. Or, if you're the sort of reader who likes to try before you buy, why not read Dirty Deals? It's the first Olesia Anderson thriller, and is available as a free download in Kindle and Epub formats!

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Keep an eye out for Chapter 8 of The B-Team sometime soon!

XCOM: The B-Team, Chapter 7 part 1 – Operation Lone Mountain

Disclaimer - this is fanfiction based on an ongoing game of XCOM, a turn based strategy game available for PC, PS3 and XBOX360. Everything that happens in these missions happened in my game. This is my real squad, my real B-Team. I invent nothing but the dialogue and external character arcs - I am, in essence, transcribing a videogame as it happens. When a character kills, is injured or dies, it happened in my game. There are no reloads and no cheating. All decisions are final.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4, part 1

Chapter 4, part 2

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

- - -

Chapter 7: Operation Lone Mountain

The pistol shook in Sergeant Tama Wise's hand. His gloves were slick with blood and sour alien mucus and when he tried to pull the trigger his finger slipped on the steel, the pistol almost falling from his grip. It wasn't fear but exhaustion that had left him broken. The comedown after two hours spent under assault, the non-stop adrenaline rush, the screaming, the plasma, the stink of cooking flesh.

“Ciao, Uso,” he said, and fired.

#

TWO HOURS EARLIER

Captain Adam Rudd was starting to wonder why the soldiers he commanded called him Santa. The only presents he brought them were third degree burns and bodybags. So when a runner knocked on the door of Rudd's private bunk at four in the morning and summoned him into Commander Pournelle's office, his stomach was already doing backflips.

“Captain.” Pournelle was seated behind his desk, hands folded before him, his face illuminated from below by a desk lamp. The Commander had grown thin since Rudd had first met him, drawn skeletal by sleepless nights. His cheekbones jutted and his eyes were sunken deep into his skull. His skin was yellowed like he had jaundice. There was grey in his hair now, as if a year spent running XCOM had sucked a decade from his bones.

“Sir.” Rudd hoped the fear wasn't showing on his face. Not the fear of the mission, but the fear of what always followed. The black plastic shrouds. The paperwork. Comrades reduced to files in a cabinet.

Pournelle's Adam's apple bobbed. “Are you familiar with what we've been doing... below?”

Below. The euphemism for the alien containment laboratory. Rudd had never been down there, but he knew what went on. Advanced interrogation. Thumbscrews and manacles for the twenty first century. Rudd nodded.

“There have been developments,” Pournelle continued. “Developments which the council would like us to pursue immediately.”

“Of course, sir.”

“You and Captain Young will be lead a team of four. You choose your soldiers. Only the best for the task.”

“Sir.” Young's brow furrowed. “Where's the landing zone?”

“Three kilometres outside Krakow.”

“Poland? Forgive me, sir, but it doesn't seem a logical place for an abduction.”

Pournelle's hands tensed on the top of his desk. “This isn't an abduction, Captain. The information we took from our captive...”

“Sir?”

It wasn't quite a smile and not a grimace. More like invisible fingers had hooked the Commander's lips back in a parody of a grin. It only made him look more like a living skeleton.

“Something better than an abduction, Captain,” Pournelle said. “We have their home base.”

#

Two hours later they were airborne.

Rudd sat at the head of the Skyranger, across from Captain 'Cash' Young. They hadn't spoken since liftoff. Young, like Rudd, knew what it was to bag and tag a comrade. It was easier not to talk.

The other four, their personal picks, were doing their best not to look grim. Lieutenant Nomi 'Alpha' Chi, sniper specialist, her rifle half a foot taller than her. Lieutenant 'Devil Dog' Lewis, laser rifle racked by his side. Lieutenant 'Crater' White, explosives expert, a bandolier of rockets slung across his chest. Finally, Sergeant Tama 'Ace' Wise, Rudd's preferred support specialist, who somehow had the calm of a monk under fire and surgeon's fingers hidden beneath his bulky armoured gloves.

He wished they'd sent the entire XCOM force, but Pournelle had insisted on a small insertion team. Quick, fast, quiet. Rudd doubted anything would be quiet, but in the end he had to defer to the man upstairs. They were armed, jacked on uppers and fresh from burying Solomon. Five angry men and a tiny, furious Canadian sniper.

Rudd hoped it would be enough. It had to be.

Lieutenant Chi spent the next four hours cleaning her weapon, her brow furrowed with concentration. Devil Dog and Crater shot shit up the back while Ace slept against the bulkhead.

Rudd tried to sleep. It wouldn't come.

Then, long before he was ready, he felt the Skyranger dip. The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom. “If you look out the left window, you'll see one of Poland's most popular tourist features.” There was a smirk in the pilot's voice. “The bunker bomb.”

Rudd just had time to peer through the tiny slit window and get a glimpse of the sweeping Polish hills before the world went white. The Skyranger duked sideways, and Rudd was thrown from his seat as the shockwave tossed the entire ship aside. The engines whined as their pilot compensated. “Jesus,” Young said, clinging tight to the bulkhead. “You think they could've found a more subtle way in?”

Rudd returned to the window. The green fields were gone. Pine trees lay flat against the ground in an ever-expanding circle, torn out by the roots by the force of the explosion. The air was choked with dust and flame.

At the epicentre of the explosion was a great hollow blown from the earth. It was impossible to miss the steel shining beneath the churned mud.

The X-rays home base, buried beneath Poland. They'd chased the bastards back and forth across the planet, killed them in every continent beneath the sun, and all the while they'd been hiding just outside Krakow.

Rudd didn't know whether it was tragic or hilarious. Maybe a bit of both. But the Skyranger was banking hard, and he knew he didn't have any more time for philosophising. The job had to be done.

“Move fast,” he told the team, meeting their eyes in turn. “If there's a leader in there, we bring it back alive. If not, kill everything that moves. But for the love of God, keep each other safe. Understood?”

The Skyranger jolted. They'd touched down.

Go time.

#

Rudd led the team out onto the still smoking grass and down the muddy crater left by the bomb. The base of the pit was a hole thirty feet wide, leading into darkness. They'd blown straight through the outer shell of the base, although whether they were about to rappel down into the X-Rays barracks or their larder was impossible to tell.

Rudd dropped a flare. Bright green light shone on curved steel surfaces, chrome and rubber coiling organically until it vanished beyond the edge of the chemical glare. “Devil Dog,” he said. “You first. Then Crater, me, Ace, Alpha, Cash. Go!”

They slid down one after the other, rope whizzing through their gloved hands. The ground shot up towards them and Rudd hit hard, rolling over his shoulder and coming up hard against the wall. His armour clicked against a surface like glass, and he shone his light upwards, letting the beam play across the slick, curving walls.

He gasped.

Beyond the curving glass, rimed with frost, was a tall figure. Stone still, eyes closed, mouth and nose sealed away behind an intubation mask, but unmistakeably human.

Wise, Chi, and 'Cash' Young thudded down behind him, taking up positions around the perimeter of the room. “Captain,” Chi said, her hand on his shoulder. “Are you...” She saw where his light was trained and jumped back, reaching for her pistol. “Fuck! What is that?”

“Abductee,” Rudd said, running one hand across the glass. Even through the gloves he could feel the chill. It was a woman on the far side of the glass, naked beneath her blanket of ichor and frost. She wasn't breathing, but that didn't mean she was dead. “This is where they bring them.”

“Why?”

“Same reason we have the basement. They want to know what we are.” When Rudd swept his light across the chamber he saw more of the glass tubes set into the walls, more figured muzzled by piping. There might've been ten. Might've been thousands.

Captain Rudd forced himself to step away. It wasn't the time, and they had a job to do. “Medical will come in and help them when we're done. Move fast!”

He took the lead with 'Devil-Dog' Lewis and 'Crater' White close behind. The chamber they'd dropped into was a womb of steel, their footsteps echoing down long black corridors. Their path was lit not by bulbs but by a skin of something like moss clumped on the walls, glowing with a sickly blue phosphorescence. The ceiling rose high overhead until it was lost in the darkness, and Rudd began to forget there was any ceiling at all. He could almost imagine they were walking through a thin mountain pass, the stars obscured by cloud, instead of descending ever further into the bowels of the earth.

And still, no X-rays. Hadn't they heard the explosion? Maybe the intel had been wrong, he thought. Maybe the aliens had cleared out weeks before and found somewhere new, carving a chunk out of the loam beneath Washington or Tokyo...

A door loomed out of the black. It was like the breaching doors aboard the downed UFOs, eight foot tall and reinforced, a small panel in the centre just the size for Rudd's hand.

He pressed against the cold steel. When he closed his eyes he could just make out something on the far side. A skittering, like claws.

“God dammit,” he whispered, motioning for Lewis and Wise to take up positions on either side of the door. Chi was twenty meters back, pressed against the wall of the tunnel with her massive sniper rifle braced across her knees. Captain Young had his rifle up and White's LMG was unslung, his finger resting alongside the trigger.

Rudd's heart hammered inside his chest. He'd killed so many X-rays he'd lost count but there was no way to forget the way Solomon had returned to base, cut through the middle like a bratwurst. There could be anything on the far side of that door. There might be six XCOM soldiers boarding the Skyranger in a few hour's time, or six bodybags being extracted by a backup team.

No way around it. He pressed the button and jumped back, rifle hard up against his shoulder.

The doors slid open soundlessly. Lewis whispered, “Goddamn.”

Rudd counted five shapes on the far side of the door. Two were huge, hulking, muscled, piggy eyes glinting inside bulky armour, plasma weaponry glowing in their fists. Mutons, the beserker bastards that had nearly killed Shephard on that rooftop in Germany. The three behind them...

The spider-things that HQ had dubbed the chryssalids. They advanced in a pack, their huge claw-legs clacking on the steel, bright yellow eyes shining in the dim phosphorescent glow. They raised their claws as one.

Rudd could even have sworn that they chittered.

“Fire, fire, fire!” he shouted, but Lewis was already moving, yanking a grenade from his belt and slipping the pin. Rudd saw him and dropped flat as the grenade bounced through the doorway and between the first Muton's legs, vanishing somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Rudd shielded his eyes.

The crash of the detonation was immense. It ricocheted down the corridor and slammed through Rudd's lungs, knocking him flat against the wall. Shrapnel rang off his armour. The corridor was choked with smoke, the X-rays invisible behind a curtain of debris.

And then, out of the darkness, they came.

“Take them down!” Captain Young called, his rifle already spitting laser-fire. One of the mutons fell with its skull ruptured, bleeding thickly across the floor, but the other was raising its weapon and the three chryssalids were clawing their way down the corridor, dragging their ruined bodies with what was left of their many legs.

A high crack rang out in the corridor, reverberating down the hidden halls; the familiar sound of Chi's sniper rifle as she racked the slide, the ejected cartridge skittering away across the floor. The first of the chryssalids didn't just tumble. It exploded, spraying Rudd with yellow gore as thick as pudding.

Rudd didn't take the moment to wipe the blood from his eyes before he hosed the X-rays. The one living muton duked left, pressing into a hollow along the length of the corridor, and Rudd's wild laser spray took the second chryssalid in the gut. It went down kicking, its long claws carving arcs through the air. The third didn't even pause as its comrade died. It leaped over the bodies of its comrades, claws striking sparks through the patina of blood, and leaped for Captain Rudd's face.

The roar of Lieutenant White's LMG was immense. It was like being picked up and battered by a tornado, the sheer volume deafening, and Rudd fell back with his hands over his ears as the chryssalid erupted in a spray of chitin and blood. The battering of bullets went on until the chryssalid and the muton hiding behind it were nothing more than smears of protein across the metal floor.

Finally, White's belt of ammunition ran out, and the bolt of his LMG locked down. The gunner panted, grinning, his dark curls sodden with alien fluids. “Nothing but a crater,” he whispered.

Rudd stood on shaking legs, sliding a fresh battery into his laser rifle. “You don't always have to live the dream, White. Subtlety is a virtue.”

White cocked his head. “I don't even know the meaning of the word.”

“I believe you.” Rudd motioned the team in close: 'Alpha' Chi reloading her rifle, White already slamming a fresh magazine into his LMG, Young and Wise checking that their own laser-rifles were humming and ready to fire. He could barely believe that nobody had been hurt. Five X-rays down and they hadn't suffered a scratch.

In Rudd's experience, if it seemed too good to be true it probably was.

“Wise, up front,” he whispered. “And for God's sake, be careful.”

#

The air in the tunnels smelled bad. Not just stale, but rotten. Lieutenant Nomi 'Alpha' Chi knew bad smells. She'd toured the X-ray UFOs twice now, dragged leaking corpses out in plastic sacks. The whole base had the same smell. Like it was less a command centre and more a tomb.

Her footsteps echoed off the steel walls as the team moved single-file down the corridors. She was at the back, her rifle at the ready, scope uncapped, ready for her trained eye. The rifle and she were a trained unit. She knew it better than any of the other men and women she fought beside. She understood its bad moods.

So when the tunnels opened up suddenly into a wide, dark hall, Chi knew just where to set up shop. She hugged the back wall, finding an alcove where she could extend her bipod and sweep the length of the cavern, inspecting the steel nooks and the vast arched ribs of the ceiling. Nothing moved in those dark spaces.

Captain Young sidled up beside her. “Anything?”

“Nuttin'.”

“Is that bad?”

“You tell me, sir.” There was a whirring in the distance, a metallic whisper she couldn't quite make out. Machinery? An iris door opening and closing? “Think you'd better find some cover, sir.”

Young snapped around. “Lewis, Wise, defensive line! Rudd, you hear that?”

“Coming in fast!” came the reply. “Artillery?”

“Inside?”

“I don't know! You tell me-”

Even as the two Captains squabbled, Nomi Chi knew what was going down. Her eye was glued to the scope, and so she was the first to see the disc floating through the hallway at the far end of the chamber. It was twice as wide as a satellite dish and near a foot thick, and it floated on what looked like a bed of steam. Superheated air spilled from vents on its underside, somehow strong enough to keep what looked like a tonne of steel wobbling through the air. Or maybe that was just the backwash of hidden plasma jets, or a magic spell cast by an alien wizard. Chi didn't give a shit. All she needed was the order to fire.

“Sir!” she called.

“Chi?”

“Target four hundred yards ahead!”

Young squinted. “Hostile?”

“No idea! Inorganic, possible drone.”

“Shoot the asshole, just to make sure.”

“You're the boss,” Chi grunted, and lined up her shot. The disc wasn't advancing, wasn't making any aggressive moves – simply hanging in the air, bobbing like it was suspended on string.

Better safe than sorry, Chi thought, and fired.

The boom echoed off the walls. The disc jumped like it'd been bitten, sparks spraying against the ceiling. Perfect shot, but it hadn't even left a dent.

Chi was still racking the slide when the disc made a sound like a low-budget Transformers toy. The disc turned slowly, seams opening in is previously seamless flanks.

“Uh, Captain-”

The disc unfolded. One moment it was floating peacefully, and the next moment it had split down the middle to reveal dark electronic guts. Slim black barrels slid out from nested cavities, already glowing with plasma.

And behind the disc, marching through the same door, were the backup. Two mutons, the hulking bastards raising their rifles to bear, and behind them the spidery silhouettes of chryssalids, more limbs rising and falling than Chi could count.

“Fuck me blind,” Chi whispered, and pulled the trigger.

TO BE CONTINUED

- - -

Author's Note: Phew! Sorry about the massive wait in between installments of The B-Team. In short, life got in the way... specifically, writing and publishing Olesia Anderson 5! But I have some free time now, so I'll be polishing off Chapter 7 some time this or next week.

If you enjoy stories with explosions and pulpy action, why not give my Olesia Anderson series a go? The latest entry, Burning Bridges, is pretty much a stand-alone story! For $2.99 you get 35,000 words of espionage, sex, gunfights, double-crosses and beautiful scenery. Or, if you're the sort of reader who likes to try before you buy, why not read Dirty Deals? It's the first Olesia Anderson thriller, and is available as a free download in Kindle and Epub formats!

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Re: my last post on Bioshock Infinite and white privilege…

So if you're a white male and you wade into a debate on white privilege and racism in gaming, and all the people who agree with you are other white males... then you're probably approaching the debate from a position of privilege and ignorance.

That's me. I jumped into a discussion for which I wasn't culturally prepared, and I came equipped with an aggressive, pigheaded attitude. I'm amazed that responses to my post didn't rip the shit out of me to a greater degree.

I'm going to step away now before I make an even bigger arse of myself and get back to something I actually have some experience with - writing about magic and junk. Apologies to anyone who I offended.