Christopher Ruz's Blog, page 9

Knittedlampshade’s issues with Bioshock Infinite: a rebuttal

I was turned on to this list of things wrong with Bioshock Infinite by author N.K. Jemisin, who then stated that because of these issues and others like it, she would be unlikely to pick up the game in question. Which I feel is a damn shame, because I read through the list and found myself disagreeing with almost every point.

The list (and obviously, if you haven't played Bioshock Infinite and don't want things spoiled for you, just TURN AWAY NOW)

racial oppression is a huge part of the game, but is still considered secondary, and used mainly to further the white cis-male main character’s personality development.
It fails utterly as a social commentary because the issues of why the racial apartheid in columbia is wrong is never addressed.
It’s all basically white tears about how “fighting violence with violence is bad” coming from white people about why there shouldn’t ever be any kind of violent uprising, regardless of what kind of violence is used to actually oppress PoC in the context of the game.
Daisy Fitzroy, is a black WoC who we’re apparently supposed to think is “equally as bad” as Comstock, the leader of this racist ass society, (Regardless of the fact that white people had been stepping all over, and murdering the PoC in columbia) because she leads a violent uprising against the white bourgeoisie.
You have to watch PoC be harmed and murdered in order to demonstrate fucking game mechanics.
Later in the game, you are forced to kill literally hundreds of PoC because they belong to the Vox Popli, which is Daisy’s revolutionary army
Again it’s legit just white tears about why violence is bad, but no commentary on why them perpetuating centuries long violence against PoC was bad. It’s like “waaaaanh this is what will happen if u choose ~violence~ white genocide and oppression” and it just shows a total lack of understanding of oppressor vs. oppressed dynamics

Okay, lets address these issues one at a time. Firstly, yes, racism and bigotry are fundamental to the world of Bioshock Infinite. The game is set in 1912, in a floating city that exists as a symbol of American exceptionalism. The racial oppression that exists throughout the city is a reflection of the real-world oppression taking place in the world below. Racism is your introduction to Columbia and is ever-present throughout the journey, beginning with the public shaming and abuse of a mixed-race couple, later evoked subtly when you step into a "Irish and Coloured's Only" restroom and the black man cleaning inside begs you to leave so trouble doesn't fall on his head, referenced when the Irish workers you meet discussing their second-class treatment in the engine rooms, and again evoked in the way the industrialist Fink oppresses his workers with 'tough love', giving patronising speeches about how it's necessary for his employees to work 80 hour weeks lest they instantly fall into lives of alcoholism and violence as soon as they have any leisure time. Racism in Columbia is explored along a long scale, beginning with almost cartoonish hatred for people of colour and continuing to those who genuinely believe that their oppression is a form of kindness.

What exactly was the Great Emancipator emancipating the Negro from? From his daily bread. From the nobility of honest work. From wealthy patrons who sponsored them from cradle to grave. From clothing and shelter. And what have they done with their freedom? Why, go to Finkton, and you shall find out. No animal is born free, except the white man. And it is our burden to care for the rest of creation. - Zachary Comstock

Seeing as this oppression sparks a war that forms the centrepoint of the game up until the final two chapters, I have no idea how anyone could consider it a secondary theme. It is always as present and as important as the other primary themes: that violence forms an unbroken circle, and whether redemption is ever possible for truly evil men.

As for whether the game "fails utterly as a social commentary because the issues of why the racial apartheid in columbia is wrong is never addressed", I don't know how to answer. I didn't realise that violence against minorities and the stoning of mixed-race couples needed to be accompanied by a banner screaming RACISM IS WRONG. These events are always heinous and unforgivable in the context of the game. Unless the author was expecting a speech outlining the history of racial oppression? The actions of the players in the game, the environment and your own characters actions speak for themselves.

Daisy Fitzroy, is a black WoC who we’re apparently supposed to think is “equally as bad” as Comstock, the leader of this racist ass society, (Regardless of the fact that white people had been stepping all over, and murdering the PoC in columbia) because she leads a violent uprising against the white bourgeoisie.

That's an outright lie. The main character aids Daisy Fitzroy and fights alongside her revolution up until the point where she attempts to murder a child purely because his parents were of the white upper class. We later witness the Vox, Daisy's revolutionary army, lining up and gunning down blindfolded civilians. Again, for those that didn't hear it - your character supports and assists in social revolution and the uprooting of a white bourgeoisie. He does not support the slaughter of children.

You have to watch PoC be harmed and murdered in order to demonstrate fucking game mechanics.

You have to watch people of ALL colours be harmed and murdered in order to demonstrate game mechanics. The very first scene involving such racial oppression features a white man and black woman being lined up for stoning, side by side.

Later in the game, you are forced to kill literally hundreds of PoC because they belong to the Vox Popli, which is Daisy’s revolutionary army

Again I point out that you were working alongside the Vox Populi until the point where their leader tried to shoot a child in the head, and you kill her in order to save the aforementioned child. After that, they try to kill you, at the same time as Comstock's army of all-white Americans are trying to kill you. You're a man caught between two wars, fighting people of colour and people not of colour in roughly equal proportions. It's dishonest to suggest that this is some sort of racial imbalance. If you want to complain about white men gunning down people of colour without context or racial sensitivity, you're welcome to attack Borderlands.

Again it’s legit just white tears about why violence is bad, but no commentary on why them perpetuating centuries long violence against PoC was bad. It’s like “waaaaanh this is what will happen if u choose ~violence~ white genocide and oppression” and it just shows a total lack of understanding of oppressor vs. oppressed dynamics

To which I quote:

I told you, Comstock-- you sell 'em paradise, and the customers expect cherubs for every chore! No menials in God's kingdom! Well, I've a man in Georgia who'll lease us as many Negro convicts as you can board! Why, you can say they're simple souls, in penance for rising above their station. Whatever eases your conscience, I suppose. - Jeremiah Fink

To tax the black more than the white, is that not cruel? To forbid the mixing of the races, is that not cruel? To give the vote to the white man, and deny it to the yellow, the black, the red -- is that not cruel? Hm. But is it not cruel to banish your children from a perfect garden? Or drown your flock under an ocean of water? Cruelty can be instructive, and what is Columbia, if not the schoolhouse of the Lord? - Zachary Comstock

Yes, the ultimate message of Bioshock Infinite (putting aside the quantum entanglement plotlines) is that violence begets violence begets violence. Your character is a murderer of women and children, caught in the middle of a war between white industrialists who exploit and kill people of colour, and a young black woman who is prepared to murder children in order to achieve social revolution. There are no heroes. Every major player in this story is a terrible human being. But that doesn't make the ACRES of commentary on the oppression and violence inherent in turn-of-the-century US society any less relevant. Would the game - and the player - have benefited if the focus had turned entirely towards racial oppression? Or does it function so well precisely because it's an omnipresent theme, a constant undercurrent that never bludgeons the player with an outright RACISM IS BAD message? According to Google, the terms 'Boxer Rebellion', 'Wounded Knee' and 'Pinkerton' have all been trending lately, almost certainly as a direct result of Bioshock Infinite providing players with enough information to give context, but not so much that it becomes a chore for the player. Isn't that exactly what games should do? Incite curiosity without preaching a message?

Perhaps, on that point, Infinite's big sin is hammering home the 'violence begets violence' theme that seems to diminish Daisy's efforts to achieve social equality. If that theme had been a little more subtle, would we be having this conversation? Are these complaints really about a lack of commentary on racial inequality, or just a lack of narrative balance?

I don't really know, but I do know that it'd be a damn shame for anyone to miss out on a rich gaming experience because of preconceived notions about Infinite functioning as a racist apologist text.

This Costs Less Than $5 And You Should Buy It Now: Hero of the Grey Area, by SGX

Do you enjoy dreamlike, ambient electronica? Did you enjoy BT's seminal album This Binary Universe, or the music of Metroid Prime? Do you need something soothing yet intricate to engage your ears while you work?

Then you should buy Hero of the Grey Area by SGX, a $5 digital album that I bought immediately upon listening to the demo track A Meal Fit For A Whale. It's everything I look for in my electronica - complex, layered melodies, a subtle breakbeat to drive it all forward, and a sense of place that makes me feel like I'm being taken on an adventure while I listen. It's flippin' great.

Also, you can stream the whole thing for free before you purchase, so why the hell not?

Hero of the Grey Area by SGX

FROM THE SITE:

This is the most focused, cohesive album by SGX focusing on instrumental pieces. SGX intersperses electro, breakbeat, and industrial beats between lush orchestrations, growling synth basses, and transporting soundscapes. "Hero" is at the same time electronic and synthetic plus natural and human.

Unlike his previous albums such as Chroma and Synesthetic which feature a mixture of not only genres, but tones, Hero of the Grey Area exudes a more homogeneous tone and feeling while still exploring fusing ideas from many genres. This is music for listening and sometimes takes its time exploring an idea in the vein of BT's "This Binary Universe."

Hero of the Grey Area features A Meal for a Whale - a track made with only a software sequencer/sampler, a piano, and the audio toy/game Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS as sound sources. SGX effects, samples, records, and manipulates his way through this at once lo-fi and lush recording creating tides of relaxed beauty and exuberance.

So, yeah. $5 for a quality album of dreamlike indie electronica. Give it a go.

Dirty Deals: Olesia Anderson Thriller #1, free forever

To celebrate the release of Olesia Anderson #5: Burning Bridges, I've decided to make Dirty Deals free. Not for five days, not for a week. Forever.

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Olesia Anderson - sharpshooter, quick-talker, and corporate spy-for-hire - has been given a second chance by her shadowy employers, the Blackrock Association. A Lockheed engineer has stolen the schematics for a new missile defence system, and Lockheed wants that data back... along with whoever he was planning to sell to.

It's supposed to be an easy job - get in, shake down the engineer, get out. But with a gorgeous foreign agent and a gang of uzi-toting teenage thugs thrown into the mix, Olesia will have a hard time keeping her head on her shoulders...

Dirty Deals is 24,000 words long - a quick, pulpy, action-packed read - and is absolutely 18+ only!

This isn't a slimmed-down preview edition, or some hack-job where I've inserted an ad at the beginning of every chapter. It's the same story that I sell on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with the addition of a couple paragraphs at the very end of the book where I ask very nicely for reviews (and, hopefully, further sales. Duh).

I hope that this brings a whole new world of readers to the Olesia Anderson series, for good or bad. If you do take the time to read Dirty Deals, I thank you in advance, and hope you enjoy your time with it as much as I've enjoyed writing these adventures.

Dirty Deals: Free Kindle Edition

Dirty Deals: Free Epub Edition

Olesia Anderson #5: Burning Bridges is live!

I'm sorry it's so late (a whole month, now - not quite George R. R. Martin levels of lateness, but bad enough), but Burning Bridges is finally here!

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Olesia Anderson, corporate spy-for-hire, is headed to Venice for what's supposed to be a low-key fraud investigation job. Step 1: steal financial data from Aureo Real Estate. Step 2: deliver it to the client. Step 3: enjoy some private time with a pair of gorgeous Italian twins, eat gelato and get a tan, all paid for by Olesia's mysterious employers, the Blackrock Association.

But Olesia's only been in town a day when she uncovers a multi-million Euro insurance scam built upon a foundation of heroin and Semtex. Somebody has a lot of money invested in Venice... enough that they'd be willing to kill to protect it.

The bodies are piling up fast, and the simple job has soon become a desperate struggle to survive in a city of secrets. Olesia will be lucky to get out with her hide intact... if she gets out at all.

If you want gunfights and saucy nights, you know where to find them! Burning Bridges is available now on Kindle and coming soon to Nook, Kobo and iBooks.

And remember, if you don't want to miss a single new release from either Christopher Ruz or D. D. Marks, . No blogspam, no sales pitches, just info on new releases and giveaways.

God help me I’m gonna bust a fuse

I just recorded a half-hour demo where I ran through my entire .doc to .mobi process, using Olesia Anderson #5 as an example... and the recorder crashed when I pressed save.

Give me a neck so I may strange it.

On the plus side, I now have Olesia #5 properly formatted and ready for launch. But even so... RARGH.

XCOM: The B-Team, Chapter 6 – Operation Swift Sword

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 5: Operation Swift Sword

Commander Pournelle woke and stared at the blank concrete ceiling of his private quarters. For the first time in weeks he didn't feel the need to jump out of bed, pull on his uniform and sprint upstairs to mission control. For the first time in weeks, he felt rested.

Five soldiers went out on Operation Enduring Mother. Five came back, battered and bleeding but dragging with them two live specimens. Vahlen had been working the big bastards over in her chamber beneath the base for forty-eight hours. The reports were promising. Vahlen hadn't figured out how to talk to the things yet, but she'd learned a lot about what made them squeal. She'd dubbed them Mutons, based on how their organics had been artificially fused to their armour. It was, Pournelle thought, as good a name as any.

No UFOs had been sighted in two days. Lieutenant Lewis was looking more and more like top leadership material, and he shrugged off burn wounds and shrapnel blasts like he was cast from iron. And Rudd was shaping up as a fine combat medic as well – his team of Solomon, Bedford, Sullivan and Young were shaping up to be a fine, cohesive unit.

It seemed as if great clouds were lifting from the horizon. God, if everything went this well, they might even win the war. Six months ago such a thought had seemed an impossibility, but now...

The phone by his bed rang, vibrating on the hook. Pournelle sighed, dug a lump of wax from his ear, and answered. “This is the Commander.”

“Sir!” Panic on the far end of the line. One of the techs up in mission control. “We've just had contact from Lagos. X-rays on the ground, sir!”

Pournelle straightened, snatching for his glasses. “What, another abduction?”

“No sir! This is an attack!”

“What?”

“It's a slaughterhouse, sir! Hundreds of civilian and military dead! They're massing at the Dodan Barracks. The city's military force is being decimated!”

Pournelle squeezed the receiver so tight he felt the plastic bending. What Nigeria couldn't do would fall to XCOM, as always. But Sergeant 'Vandal' Shephard and Sergeant 'Devil-Dog' Lewis were his two most experienced soldiers, and both were bed-ridden. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Huang seemed to be developing an unhealthy attachment to assault-specialist Shephard – unhealthy because he didn't need the man flaking out when one of his squadmates was under fire. Huang had been spending altogether too much time in the infirmary over the past two days, which made him a liability.

Which meant that Rudd and his crew were the front line.

“Call the barracks,” Pournelle barked. “I want Rudd, Bedford, Solomon.” He paused. Heavy artillery would be necessary. “Richardson too. And is Lewis out of bed yet?”

There was a pause as the man on the other end contacted the infirmary. “Patched up as of this morning.”

“No time for R&R. Get him loaded and ready. Briefing in five.”

#

Assault Specialist Jake Solomon could barely bring himself to look out the Skyranger windows as they descended into Lagos. It was the fires that terrified him the most, the flares of red in the darkness. From half a mile up it looked as if the entire city was bathed in flame, a miniature apocalypse centered in Nigeria. The knowledge that every one of those points of flame was a burning car, or even a dying man, their clothes and hair fuelling the fire.

He couldn't hear the screams, but he could imagine them well enough. It was a holocaust, and they were descending into it at two hundred miles an hour.

“Hey. Specialist.”

Solomon looked up into 'Santa' Rudd's eyes. “Sir?”

“Chin up, soldier. This is just another job.” But even Santa looked rattled. He was gripping his laser rifle so tight that Solomon thought it might bend in his hands. “This is a rescue mission. We collect civvies and get the fuck out. No big deal. God, it's hot in here. Bedford, you got any gum?”

Bedford handed a stick across wordlessly. The Skyranger bounced as it hit an air pocket, and Solomon swallowed bile. “Do we know how many civilians are in the drop zone?”

“As many as three hundred. Maybe none.”

None. Code for, everyone dead. It wasn't something Solomon wanted to think about. All the months he'd spent developing XCOM's battlefield software had forced him to think of soldiers and civilians alike as numbers, blips of light on a screen. He'd managed that. That had somehow been okay. That was war. But civilians? They could never just be dots.

“Look at me, Specialist!” Rudd punched Solomon in the shoulder hard enough to sting. “You're gonna get down there and do what you were trained to do, understand? No bullshit, no theatrics. Deal?”

“Sir!”

“Awesome.” Rudd rolled his gum from one side of his mouth to the other. “Fuckin' awesome.”

- - -

Solomon could feel the heat before he even stepped off the back tray.

They'd come down just inside the walls of the Dodan Barracks, the central military outpost in Lagos. The light of the flames was so intense that Solomon could barely see what he was running into, but incurring the wrath of Sergeant 'Santa' Rudd was more terrifying than staying on board. He sprinted blind into the smoke, Lewis and Bedford thundering behind him, until he came up against a tall brick wall. There, he crouched low and took stock.

The base was in ruins. Dodan was a small outpost, a barracks with a tank and jeep yard attached, but those tanks were now burning in neat rows, their treads melting into the dirt. The jeeps were overturned, blasted black. The horizon was strangled by smoke.

Worst of all were the screams. They rose above the crackle of flames, wavering, desperate. Solomon didn't understand the language but he didn't need to know those people were in pain. Somewhere amidst the tangled wreckage of cars and corpses were people that needed help.

Blips, he reminded himself. If he thought of them as anything else it'd drive him mad.

Rudd led them into the flames, the heat strong enough to blister, directing them to cover behind a head-high wall of sandbags. “Bedford, get your rifle deployed. I want you in solid, covering the north approach. Lewis, you see the second tank? Get up by the tread and watch the crates. Solomon... shit, shit, incoming!”

Solomon spun, laser rifle up hard against his shoulder. Floaters, the mutant half-steel sons of bitches he'd gunned down in Russia. First two, then two more, moving in formation above the flames, plasma rifles venting energy in their hands.

“Down, down, down!” Rudd was the first to fire, and Solomon joined him, the sizzle of their rifles louder than the crackle of flames. One of the floaters tumbled from the sky, screaming thinly as it impacted and exploded across the parade ground, but the other three slipped behind the line of burning tanks, vanishing into the shadows.

Solomon panted. His sinuses were full of ozone, the discharge of his laser rifle coiling in his nostrils. Rudd slapped him on the shoulder. “Good shot. We need a defensive perimeter, before those fuckers surround us. You got the arc thrower charged?”

Solomon nodded, his mouth dry. He'd drawn the unlucky straw in the Skyranger, being handed the taser in lieu of something useful, like a grenade.

“Good. Doctor Vahlen wants one alive. Again.” Rudd's lips drew back over his lips in a rictus grin. “God damn it. Okay. Bedford, cover! Lewis, Richardson, on me!”

There was no way to say no, and Solomon found his legs moving automatically, propelled by the chain of command, as they slipped across from the wall of sandbags to the steel shipping containers facing the line of tanks. Solomon could hear the floaters but couldn't see them. Their metallic roars echoed in the night air.

“Stay low,” Rudd whispered. “Lewis, up front. They-”

The three floaters rose above the tanks, blue flames jutting from their undercarriages as they shot into the air, propelled by plasma. The bright lance of Bedford's sniper rifle cut across the sky, missing the pack by inches. Solomon fired instinctively, Richardson's LMG chattering beside him, their combined gunfire deafening.

Two of the floaters spun, collided, and fell to earth, spitting blood and electricity. The third ducked low, slipping behind the line of tanks. “Go, go!” Rudd called. “Chase that fucker down!”

Solomon ran, flanking the parked tanks, his rifle up hard against his shoulder. Rudd was by his side, pistol in hand, and as they rounded the final tank they found the last floater hovering a foot above the ground, hiding behind a stack of wooden shipping crates.

When it came to swinging a pistol, Rudd was fast and true. He aimed and plugged the floater through the chest three times, sending it crashing to the ground. “Stun the fucker!” he called, and Solomon jammed the arc thrower into the monster's chest.

Electricity leaped from his hand to the beast, and it fell in the dirt, flailing and throwing up dust. Solomon jumped back, keeping his distance as the creature finally settled. It was bleeding bad, yellow blood pumping sluggishly from gaping wounds. “You, uh, you beat it up pretty bad, Sarge.”

Rudd grinned. “It'll live long enough for Vahlen to poke at it.” He sauntered back towards where Bedford had set up his sniper rifle. “Okay, that's the frontal assault, but there'll be more in the wings. Lewis, I want you up front, full loaded. Richardson, you see that garage? Find a way up on that roof. Bedford, you ranged in? I-”

The Sergeant's shouting had all faded into the distance for Solomon. Something had caught his eye on the far side of the compound, beyond the flames and the upturned jeeps and corpses lying blackened in the mud.

There was a row of shipping containers against the furthest wall, stacked two-high, lined up neatly. Some were seared black by plasma blasts, others half melted by the flames, slumping into the mud like candlewax.

In the darkness, beyond the shipping containers, yellow eyes gleamed.

Every X-ray Solomon had seen, whether in the flesh or on shaky chest-cam footage, had been monstrous. The spindle-bodied sectoids, the thin men with their skin-suits and thin smiles, the mutons roaring in their containment cages deep below XCOM Headquarters... Each new alien was a new, terrible assembly of bone and steel, and Solomon had thought he was numb to the horrors that the invasion could throw at him.

He was wrong.

The thing that stalked out of the black was eight feet tall, multilegged, claws scraping on the concrete. At first he thought it was a spider grown impossibly huge, some mutant tarantula emerging from its web, but then he saw the skinny torso emerging from the centre of all those multi-jointed legs, the grasping arms, the two eyes shining with sickly intelligence.

“Jesus,” Solomon whispered, as a second set of eyes appeared behind the first, blinking lazily, reflecting flames. The two spider-creatures advanced, claws ringing like steel on the concrete. “Jesus Christ.”

The creatures pounced.

Solomon turned and ran, rifle clutched against his chest, lungs pounding, vision blurred by panic. Lewis and Rudd were waiting behind the crates, and their eyes widened as they saw his terror. “Shoot!” he screamed. The crates were only a few feet away, close enough to touch. The clatter of claws rang in his ears. “Shoot them!”

Laser light ripped across the tank yard. One of the creatures hissed, a sound like oil and water crackling on a stovetop, but the other was close, so close he could feel its foetid breath on the back of his neck.

He spun, raising his rifle, finger on the trigger. The creature loomed over him, blocking out the stars, carapace gleaming.

The claws lifted and fell, so fast they were a blur, and Solomon fell in two neat pieces.

#

Sniper Specialist Paul Bedford was close enough to Solomon that the squaddie's blood splashed across his boots when the monster cut him down. He staggered back, finger on the trigger of his laser rifle, unable to speak, unable to scream. His entire world was the blackness of its chitinous armour, the claws descending, gore dripping thickly from the blades.

Then a voice brought him back. “Bedford, get the fuck down!”

A small shape arced past his head, bouncing on the wooden crates. A grenade. Instinct took over and Bedford threw himself to the floor, just as the grenade detonated. The explosion was a hammer in the guts, smashing the air from his lungs. His ears were filled with a dog-whistle tone.

“Back, back!” That was Sergeant Rudd, his hand on Bedford's shoulder, dragging him away from the line of jeeps. The vehicles were on fire, he realised, great gouts of flame boiling from below the undercarriage. What the X-rays had been unable to do, the grenade had done for them. They were about to blow.

The two creatures were still advancing, but they limped now, dragging their segmented limbs. Thick yellow blood puddled beneath them with every step, but their claws were still long and vicious.

The first of the monsters crouched, tensed, and leaped.

Sergeant Rudd's hand left Bedford's shoulder long enough for him to aim and fire. The laser sliced the creature from the air, leaving it steaming in the dirt. “Get the fuck up!” he said, and Bedford couldn't help but obey.

The second monster jumped too fast for Bedford to track. It skittered back into the shadows of the shipping crates, leaving a trail of sizzling ichor. The clicking of claws echoed off the steel, and then all was silent.

Bedford gripped his rifle tight, waiting for his heart to slow. “What the fuck was that?”

Rudd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think I know?”

“God, it just-” The jeep nearest Bedford exploded as the fuel line caught. Glass shards sheeted across the muck. “Is Solomon-”

Squaddie Richardson had already crossed to where Solomon fell. His face was ashen white. “He's, uh-”

“I know.” Bedford's hands had stopped shaking. He swept his rifle across the shipping crates, watching through the scope for any signs of life. There were none. Solomon's blood was drying on his kneepads, and that fact made him want to scream. He'd been joking with the man less than an hour before as they swept south over Lagos, and now he was in two pieces.

It didn't seem possible. It didn't seem fair. Then again, what did fair have to do with war?

Rudd waved towards the shipping containers. “Bedford, keep an overwatch. Richardson, Devil Dog, on me.” The Sergeant advanced, rifle up, and although he looked grim Bedford could see his shoulder shaking. “You see anything move, you blow it away.”

“Sir.” Bedford racked a new battery into his laser rifle and unfolded his bipod, propping his rifle up on the crates where Solomon had died. Rudd's grenade had done terrible things to the Squaddie's corpse, and the floater he'd stunned with the arc thrower had taken shrapnel as well. Their live specimen was dead. Solomon had exposed himself for nothing.

It made Bedford's trigger finger itchy. “Come on, you fuckers,” he whispered, sweeping his rifle back and forth across the crates, watching through the night-vision scope as Rudd and his team-mates advanced. “Come on, stick your dicks out, come on-”

A shadow unfolded behind the steel. The monster was back.

Bedford fired, his laser searing across the parade-ground. His shot was precise, and the creature faltered, one of its many terrible legs tumbling into the dirt. But it was still upright, still moving, and there was something behind it, lurching out of the dark. Something upright, two legged, human, ragged and burned black by the fires, moaning through a mouth full of broken teeth.

“Jesus Christ,” Bedford whispered. All his childhood nightmares had come to life.

The aliens were fielding zombies.

#

Squaddie Michael Richardson was five paces behind Rudd when the Sergeant fell back, scrambling for cover behind one of the shipping containers. He caught a glimpse of a shambling figure, a man dragging his way out of the dark, and then Rudd's hand caught his wrist and hauled him to safety. “You see that?” the Sergeant hissed.

Richardson wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Looked like a civvie to me.”

“That's no civilian. That guy was...” Santa shuddered. “Okay. Lewis, you're with me. Let's blow this thing away. Richardson, cover. On two-”

They rounded the shipping container, and Richardson found himself face to face with the walking dead.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a monster ripped from a cheap horror B-movie, a man staggering from the flames, his eyes rolled back in his skull and his chest soaked with gore. Richardson might still have mistaken him for a civvie, if not for the massive wound in his neck - he could see right through to the bone. Something had nearly sliced the man's head off, and he was still walking, still biting at the air.

A zombie. A real life walking zombie.

Then came the sizzle of gunfire as Bedford, Lewis and the Sergeant opened up simultaneously. Three lines of light arced across the compound, and the zombie thing fell apart, still groaning and twitching, carving snow angels in the dirt. Richardson gaped as the thing whistled out the last of its air and, mercifully, died.

Devil-Dog Lewis kicked the thing in the guts. It twitched, but didn't get back up. “You think that came down from the ship?”

“Check the uniform,” Richardson said. The zombie was dressed in Nigerian camo, two gold pips on his shoulder. “They're turning soldiers into... shit, Sarge! That isn't right!”

“Focus, Specialist! Still at least one of them out there, and-” Rudd swung around. “Up high, up high!”

Richardson looked up in time to see the spider-thing silhouetted against the night sky. It was scuttling along the lip of the shipping container, dragging its severed limb along the steel, but despite its injury the creature's claws still looked sharp enough to shear through bone.

Panic rose up like glue in his throat as it leaped, arcing high overhead. Rudd and Lewis fired, but too slow, too late, their lasers slicing harmlessly across the night sky. Richardson watched it soar. He could already see where it was going to land.

His finger was on the trigger. He was ready.

The spider thing hit the dirt less than a yard away, mud splashing across its carapace. Firelight slid across its armoured bulk. It turned to Richardson with its jaw hanging low, revealing rows of needle teeth.

He hosed the bastard, not letting go of the trigger until his LMG was dry.

#

They swept the rest of the base but the only things left alive in the maelstrom were two guard dogs driven mad by the heat. Richardson let them out and led them to a busted water main, where they drank gratefully before loping away into the night.

Santa fetched the body bags from the Skyranger. It took two trips to get Solomon inside.

It was a smooth ride back to HQ, but Richardson's stomach kept turning regardless. This was the second time he'd had to sit next to a body in the Skyranger, and the knowledge that Solomon was so close, still there in the flesh but not breathing, not thinking, reduced to meat and bone, made him sick.

He drank water until the shakes stopped, then closed his eyes and willed the flight to go faster.

He was asleep when they bumped down in XCOM HQ, but the jolt brought him back to attention. The tray eased down, and the first thing Richardson saw beyond the glare of the landing bay lights was Commander Pournelle himself, standing at attention.

“Jesus,” Bedford whispered. “The Commander-”

“Keep it in your pants,” Sergeant Rudd said. He stood slowly, rifle resting on his shoulder. “Solomon goes first.”

Richardson stood stiffly, his LMG by his side, bent beneath the Skyranger's low ceiling, as the medical technicians marched in and collected the body bags. This time, at least, Rudd had gotten the zips done up securely. There was no blood on the floor of the Skyranger for a change.

Once the bags were gone, Pournelle crooked one finger towards Sergeant Rudd. “Debrief. Now.”

Lewis stood tall by Rudd's side. “Santa, you need any-”

“You too, Lewis. Bedford, get your ass down to the range. I was watching your chestcam. That shit will not pass, soldier.”

Bedford's jaw jutted. “Sir!”

Richardson trembled. He'd gunned floaters out of the sky and watched some nightmare spider-thing cut one of his fellow soldiers in half, but Pournelle's sunken eyes and razor-thin scowl was more terrifying than either. So when Pournelle's eyes fell on him his breath seized in his chest.

“Corporal Richardson,” Pournelle said.

“Uh, Squaddie Richardson, Sir-”

“What did I say, Corporal? Did I say Squaddie? Am I going deaf in my old age? Clean your weapon and return to the bunks, Corporal!”

Richardson nodded, snatching his LMG from the rack and snapping off a quick salute. He met Sergeant Santa's eyes as he passed, and a look of sympathy passed between them. Then he sprinted past, into the corridors, far beyond Pournelle's judging gaze.

Half an hour later he stepped out of the elevator and into the barracks. He'd heard no announcements while cleaning and storing his LMG, which meant that Solomon's death was still hush-hush. Soon, all the troops would be summoned up to the briefing room. The mission would be summarised in a few sentences. Solomon's death and the blame for it would be passed over in moments. The rest would be a eulogy, just like that read out for Nyssa Zelman and Lucien Hickman. All of Solomon's mistakes wiped clean. Turned into a hero post-mortem.

Which, Richardson thought, he was. But Pournelle's speeches made the XCOM dead into fake heroes. TV heroes. Not real people, scared people, who went down screaming.

He didn't like Pournelle very much.

He passed the pool tables and the drinks machine. The riot of colours behind the glass was just a smear. He punched a dollar into the machine and bought a Twix. It tasted like ash.

He spat the chocolate down the sink and went into the bunkhouse.

Corporal Wendy Gollnick was in her bunk, legs crossed, a book open in her lap. She looked up as Richardson walked in. “Hey! Easy op? No scrapes?”

Richardson nodded numbly. He could just make out the cover of her book – an X-Men hardcover collection. Something twitched in her lap, and long white ears poked out from above the lip of the book. “How's Ripley?”

Gollnick set her comic down, revealing the white rabbit curled up in her lap. “She needs some sun. The UV lamps aren't enough, I think. But they don't mind me stealing salad from the mess, so she's eating all her greens.”

Richardson couldn't help but grin. “How'd you get the Commander's approval?”

“I just asked nicely! Pournelle's a nice guy.”

“If you get him on a good day.”

“I guess.” Gollnick flipped a few pages, met Richardson's eyes, and snapped the comic closed. “Where're the others?”

Richardson swallowed. “They're... debriefing.”

“Oh God. Who-”

“Solomon.”

Gollnick nodded slowly. “Was it... bad?”

“The worst.”

Gollnick stroked Ripley almost mechanically. “I'm...”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“They say they're following a signal from the UFOs. Might lead us to their base.” Gollnick ducked her head. “It'd be nice to end all of this.”

“Yeah. If that is the end.”

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Gollnick didn't meet Richardson's eyes. The rabbit in her lap combed its ears.

It didn't seem like there was anything else to say.

- - -

Author's Note: SOLOMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

What a damned tragedy. Jake Solomon cut down in his prime, and for what? The captured floater was killed by the grenade blast. Another poor squaddie thrown into the meat grinder.

It ain't fair, bro. It ain't fair.

If you enjoy my sci-fi and would like to support my writing ventures (and keep The B-Team going), why not check out my collection of sci-fi shorts, Past the Borders? It's just $2.99 on Kindle, and contains some of my favourite works.

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Otherwise, take care! Chapter 7 is going to be a big one: the alien base itself!

Yo, Ruz! Where is Olesia Anderson #5, Burning Bridges?

I said I'd have it done in February. I was wrong.

Olesia #5 is about 90% done at the moment. I'm untangling an overly tangled plot and refining a few concluding scenes. I'd really like to have it in the hands of test readers by this weekend, but it's dependent on me figuring out solutions to a few very thorny issues.

But believe me, it's almost done. Also, it's long. The longest single issue Olesia Anderson story so far. So... it'll be worth the wait. I promise.

Keep an eye out: Forged by Fate, by Amalia Dillin

I have many talented author-friends. Some of them write for big companies like Bioware, and some write comics like Green Wake, and then others just go ahead and get their epic fantasy novels published and make me all green with jealousy.

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Every god, from each of the world’s pantheons, mythologies, and religions — they’re all real.

After Adam fell, God made Eve to protect the world. — Adam has pursued Eve since the dawn of creation, intent on using her power to create a new world and make himself its God. Throughout history, Eve has thwarted him, determined to protect the world and all of creation. Unknown to her, the Norse god Thor has been sent by the Council of Gods to keep her from Adam’s influence, and more, to protect the interests of the gods themselves. But this time, Adam is after something more than just Eve’s power — he desires her too, body and soul, even if it means the destruction of the world. Eve cannot allow it, but as one generation melds into the next, she begins to wonder if Adam might be a man she could love.

Amalia Dillin isn't just a talented author, she's one of the most dedicated I know, and I'm chuffed as hell to see that Forged by Fate found a home with World Weaver Press. It's out March 5th, so start saving your pennies. Congrats Amalia!

XCOM: The B-Team, Chapter 5 – Operation Enduring Mother

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: Enduring Mother

The Skyranger skimmed low above the Munich skyline, landing skids brushing antenna and startling flocks of pigeons from their nests, before circling the Hochhaus Uptown twice and coming in to land on the rooftop. Corporal Eliza Shephard was the first down the tray and onto the bare concrete, sweeping across the open expanse with her rifle up hard against her shoulder. “Clear, clear, clear!”

The rest of the team were close behind: Sergeant Adam Lewis, Sergeant Andrew White, Sergeant Wise, and bringing up the back, Lieutenant William Huang, his ridiculously oversized laser rifle resting over his shoulder, wind in his hair like he was some Pantene shampoo model. God, she hated the Lieutenant, with his perfect smile and his gun taller than he was. Cocky bastard, too good looking to ignore.

Huang pointed out cover around the rooftop. The Hochhaus was a skyscraper, primarily commercial, thirty-eight stories tall and wrapped in glass like a shining phallus thrusting up out of the earth. The top of the Hochhaus was under construction, littered with shipping crates and scaffolding and plastic sheets twisting in the breeze. Somewhere amidst that mess were a whole host of X-rays. XCOM had gotten the call, frantic, panicked, the German translation coming through in fits and starts – an abduction in the heart of the city, aliens pouring through the ventilation shafts, snatching up office workers on the top level and spiriting them away into the skies.

Shephard had always wanted to visit Munich. The Symphony Orchestra was world-renowned, and the Munich Hochschule for Music and Performing Arts... her heart thudded harder at the thought of a half-hour tour. But today, they were in town for business, and that business was killing.

Huang slapped her on the shoulder as he passed. “Got your back, Vandal.”

Shephard scowled. “Right behind you, Xeno.”

“Hey, that shit isn't funny.”

“About as funny as Vandal.” The name had stuck after Operation Banished Hammer. Hadn't been anything left of the aliens inside that UFO but smears of blood and skin across the floor like clotted paint. She'd have preferred something like Killer or Deadeye, but she supposed beggars couldn't be choosers. It could've been worse. Like how the squad had taken to calling Lewis 'Devil-Dog' after the number of times he'd nearly died in the field and been resurrected by the XCOM surgeons. Or 'Xeno' Huang, who'd earned his nickname through overuse of shitty catchphrases.

Yeah, she thought. Vandal wasn't so bad after all.

They spread out across the rooftop, Shephard leading, finger on the trigger. They hadn't been told what to expect out there, no indication of the forces they were up against. Only that, in XCOM tradition, shit was probably about to hit the fan.

And, like clockwork, it did.

Lieutenant Huang took point, tossing his battlefield scanner overarm into the tangle of shipping containers. The device functioned much like a miniature radar, pinging off steel and flesh alike, giving the Lieutenant a clear view of nearly everything on the rooftop. Huang was crouched behind a pile of steel drums, staring at his tablet, which in turn gave him a birds-eye view of the Hochhaus.

“Two blips ahead,” he whispered. “Around the back of those crates. Might by X-rays, might be pigeons.” He pointed up ahead. The Skyranger had landed at the south-east corner of the skyscraper – dead ahead was a stack of shipping containers, large enough to hide any number of hostiles. Meanwhile, to the left, was two stories worth of scaffolding creaking in the wind, shored up with half-finished prefab concrete walls. A tight little maze where any encounter would be at a fatally close range.

Shephard made sure her rifle was charged. They'd issued the entire team with new, laser-based weaponry, forcing Shephard to trade in her beloved shotgun for a slick, rounded rifle that felt more like a kid's toy than a device of destruction. She'd spent a hundred hours on the range, adjusting to the weight of the gun, the way it hummed in her hands, but it still didn't feel like a real gun.

She tapped Huang on the shoulder. “You want me up front?”

Lieutenant Huang hesitated. “You want to be up front?”

“I go where you need me, sir.”

Huang nodded slowly. “Take point. Just... stay safe, Corporal.”

Staying safe had never been Shephard's concern. Doing the job right was the priority. She watched the skies as she advanced, Sergeant Wise close behind. Huang was keeping back, watching their advance with his sniper rifle ready, reading off his battle scanner. “Those two are moving in from your north. No idea what they are... Woah! Two more on the right, two more!”

The attack came in almost too fast for Shephard to track. Almost. To their left, from the scaffolding, came a low roar of engines. She knew that sound well – floaters, the mutated stitched-together sons of bitches, skimming low above the skyline. From the right...

They emerged together, two beasts like armoured gorillas, huge and hulking as they knuckled their way across the rooftop. Bodybuilders wrapped in steel, carrying oversized weapons, their strangely human eyes glinting in the sunshine.

Instinct took over. The floaters were coming in fast, and Shephard dropped to one knee, found her range and blew the lead X-ray out of the sky. Her new rifle buzzed, laser energy venting through hidden grills, filling her nostrils with the stink of melting plastics. Huang's laser fire lanced out from behind her, catching a second floater in the chest, and the two tumbled together, exploding as they hit the concrete.

Behind her, Sergeant White called, “What the fuck are those things?”

“Just shoot them!” was Huang's reply, and White obliged. He shouldered the chunky steel tube he'd carried off the Skyranger – a rocket launcher, five foot long, painted green with a red arrow at one end declaring THIS END TOWARDS ENEMY. The two gorillas were still coming, their footfalls thundering on the concrete. They roared, showing deep black mouths, tongues shining in the pits of their throats. God, Shephard thought. The beasts didn't need guns. If they closed the distance they could pick White off the ground and crush his head in their medicine-ball fists.

White slid a rocket into the tube, dropped to one knee, and shouted, “Fire in the hole!” Shephard threw herself down, clenching her gut, waiting for the boom.

The two armoured gorillas were less than ten meters from White when he pulled the trigger. There was a hissing sound, and the rocket launcher tube farted flame out both ends. The first of the gorillas threw one arm up over its face, and then both creatures vanished in an apocalypse of flame and shrapnel.

There was a moment when the whole squad held their collective breath. Then the smoke cleared, and the two armoured gorillas were revealed – one lying dead, cut in two by the explosion, the second twisted against one of the shipping containers, sitting in the centre of a ruined depression of concrete.

White fist-pumped the air. “You see that! Left a crater!”

Sergeant Lewis, standing a few feet behind White, wasn't laughing. “That fucker's still moving!” he called. Lewis was a big hunk of meat, bearded and severe, and Shephard knew he'd taken fire before – hell, he'd been there when Nyssa Zelman had been blasted in the back, a day that XCOM Commander Pournelle was still trying to live down. She'd expected Lewis to be frozen in fear, to hold back behind cover. She didn't expect him to vault over his barricade of wooden planking and jam his arc thrower into the downed alien's face.

There was a crackle of energy, and the alien slumped, blood bubbling on what Shephard assumed were its lips. Lewis stood over the body, the arc thrower still spitting sparks. “Target has been neutralised,” he grunted.

Shephard stared at the body. The creature was still breathing, but only barely. The gorilla comparison had been right, but the alien was hairless, even scaled, its eyes sunken beneath a simian brow. It looks strong, top heavy, nothing but muscle inside its armour plating.

It looked, she thought, like the aliens had watched XCOM soldiers kicking ass in the field and done their best to build an imitation.

“What the fuck it is?” White whispered. “These cocks just get bigger and bigger. I hit him dead fucking centre. Left a crater and it's still breathing. What do they make them out of?”

“I guess they drink their ovaltine, Sergeant.” The smell rising off the stunned alien was enough to make her gag, and Shephard stepped back, slamming a fresh battery into her laser rifle. She missed the feel of sliding individual shells into the breech, but she couldn't deny that blowing floaters out of the sky with a sizzle of energy held a certain charm. Maybe she'd get used to it in time. “Lieutenant Xeno, orders?”

Huang scowled. “Are you trying to make me angry, Corporal?”

“Wouldn't dream of it, Lieutenant.”

Huang didn't meet her eyes. “Then you wouldn't mind taking Lewis and White on a recce around the north-east corner of the site?”

The north-east corner was where the floaters had emerged from: a wild knot of scaffolding piled eight meters high, iron piping laying in piles like snowdrifts, tarpaulins slashed by high winds. It all seemed quiet to Shephard, but everything seemed quiet before things went bad.

“It's a death-trap, sir,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.

“Then be careful.” Huang checked the charge on his rifle, hands moving fast, automatically. “Do it right.”

Shephard couldn't refuse. She motioned Lewis and White to her side and crossed the rooftop, cocking her head, listening to the breeze. The way it moved across stone and plastic was a distinct, and she drew a picture of the scaffolding in her head. Tunnels of concrete and steel...

There. A sound below the wind. A low growl, so deep that it vibrated in some deep, primal part of her skull.

Ambush.

Shephard dropped low, rifle humming against her chest. “Lewis,” she whispered. “Up those stairs.” She pointed to the north edge of the rooftop, where concrete stairs led up to a rooftop access door and a port-a-potty. Lewis nodded, creeping up the stairs as silently as a cat, surveying the expanse of the rooftop from up high. “White. Cut left.” White did so, his LMG prepped and loaded, ready to tear holes out of anything that would appear. Huang and Wise were at her back, watching the shipping crates, making sure nothing jumped them from behind.

Nowhere to go but forward. She advanced into the mess of scaffolding and lifted a trap aside with the barrel of her rifle, peering into the gloom.

Simian eyes stared back, shining a sickly yellow in the evening light.

“Contact, contact!” she shouted, tumbling back, her finger on the trigger. Laser light flared from the end of her rifle and the plastic sheeting melted into the air, but there were too many of the things, three, four, five of the steel plated gorillas pouring out of their hideyhole and into the light.

She fell back against an air-conditioning unit and scrambled on hands and knees, putting it between herself and the X-rays. They were tearing free of the plastic now, roaring as they advanced across the rooftop, each eight foot tall and built like trucks. Shephard fumbled for the grenade at her belt and tossed it overarm, and the thud of the explosion carried through the concrete, vibrating in her guts. She didn't dare peek out, but from overhead she heard Lewis call, “Blew it in half! Nice hit, Vandal!”

“Just shoot the fucking things!”

“Yes sir!” Lewis's shotgun roared. Then, the words she dreaded most. “Can't believe it! They're moving too fast, I missed, I fucking-”

The low whump of plasma carried in wind. The gorillas were firing, and all Shephard could do was hunker down. She could hear Huang and White opening up from behind, the laser-zip of gunfire sending shivers down her spine. She was caught in the middle, pinned between two fronts. “Hit them again, hit-”

The impact was an electric shock to the gut. She stared at the huge hole blasted in the air conditioning unit, where the bolt of plasma had melted through steel and continued on to hit her in the side. Her armour was smoking. She tasted copper.

Her last thought before she slipped into unconsciousness was that the Lieutenant was an asshole. Then, there was nothing but black.

#

Sergeant Adam Lewis was up on the second level with a sweet view out over the streets and byways of Munich when the armoured X-rays burst free of their hiding place. His initial attack had gone wide, even with a clear shot down on to the bastard's heads, and then Shephard had been hit, leaving her slumped behind the air conditioning unit.

He couldn't tell whether she was alive or dead, but he knew he was angry. “Fuckers!” he said, jamming the trigger back on his shotgun until the breech locked open. His pistol was ready on his belt, and he drew it from the holster with one swift movement, exhaled, and fired into the mass.

One of the big X-rays went down kicking, a hole barely as wide as a bic pen bored through its skull. “Eat shit!” Lewis crowed. “Die, you-”

There were three still on their feet, and they fired as one. Lewis wasn't fast enough to duck, and the bolt of energy caught him in the shoulder. He was slammed back, hitting the concrete, the shock jarring his pistol out of his hands.

“Hit!” he called. “I'm down, I'm hit!” He probed the open hole in his armour with one trembling finger, expecting to feet blood and pulped flesh, but his finger brushed the underlayer of armour, softened but not penetrated by the plasma. His arm was numb from shock, but he was intact.

“Forget it!” he shouted, scrambling for his pistol. “Kill those sons of bitches!”

But there was no reply from below, just the chatter of automatic weapons and the hiss of laser beams cutting the air, and by the time Lewis was on his feet he understood why. The creatures had advanced, hulking their way across the rooftop, leaving Shephard isolated behind the air conditioning unit. Lewis could see the blood pool beneath her body widening, the slick red puddle staining the concrete.

She had minutes, maybe less.

Sergeant White was hunkered behind a barricade of 2-by-4s, and he tossed a grenade out almost lazily that landed between two of the hulks and exploded in a spray of fire and shrapnel. Sergeant Wise was close behind, ducking out of cover to laser the first hulk's face off, but there were still two coming, big and angry, muscles popping out of the gaps in their armour. Lieutenant Huang was still safe behind cover, laser-sniper set atop a bipod, finding his range. “Heads down,” Huang called, “watch your lines!”

Huang fired. The rifle painted a red line of energy across the rooftop, cutting close enough to one of the hulk's heads that the creature winced, clapping one huge hand to its ear, but the shot didn't find a target. “Fuck!” Huang called. “Reloading, re-”

“This is bullshit, Lieutenant!” Lewis pumped two shells into his shotgun, which was the most he could fit in his hand at one time. “Bull! Shit!”

The hulks were almost on top of Shephard, their huge feet threatening to crush her skull into the floor, and as far as Lewis could see the Corporal had stopped breathing.

Lewis had never given two shits about the chain of command, but there were some things he couldn't abide. His back was slick with sweat and his guts were a knot of panic but he forced it down and dropped off the second story, into the midst of the X-rays. He could smell them as he landed, a thick, rotten-vegetable stench that left him gagging.

The two X-rays turned, a little too slowly, and Sergeant Lewis jammed his shotgun up into the first alien's face and fired. A trigger pull, a pump, a second pull, and the creature went down with its skull split in two.

The second X-ray was close enough to touch, and Lewis threw himself to the floor as it fired, plasma searing a hot line across his back. “Shoot it!” he called, and the staccato roar of Sergeant White's LMG filled the air. The X-ray staggered back, throwing one hand up over its hideous face, and a moment later its arm was tumbling free, severed at the shoulder, the flesh cauterised by Lieutenant Huang's laser.

The X-ray staggered, keening in pain. Lewis clutched his useless shotgun. He had the perfect angle, but no shells. His left hand stole down to his belt and caressed his pistol.

Then, next to it, he found the arc thrower. The taser device had enough charge in it for two solid hits, but there was no telling whether that would be enough. He had to trust in Vahlen, and the dubious nature of the XCOM research team.

Heart in his mouth, Lewis closed the distance and slammed into the alien, tackling it low and behind the knees. The creature fell, spraying blood in great hot arcs, and Lewis jammed the prongs of his arc thrower into the alien's raw stump.

It kicked, writhed, and fell still.

Lewis rolled away, panting, blinking the sweat from his eyes. The stench of the creature was making him gag. “Is she okay? Is the Corporal okay?”

Huang and Wise were by his side, busy with hypodermics and bandages. “She's pretty messed up,” Wise said. “Gotta hope we can stop the bleeding.” Wise was a big guy, hair shaved down to the knuckle, built from bricks, but even he looked terrified as he jammed a hypo of adrenaline into Shephard's chest. “Get the goddamn stretcher!”

As White sprinted back to the Skyranger, all Lewis could do was watch Wise performing chest compressions, a rapid thud thud thud, pressing deep into Corporal Shephard's ribcage. Each compression forced a bubble of blood up over her lips.

He stared at the two X-rays lying stunned on the rooftop, and all the others blown to shit, eyeballs and brains congealing on the sun-warmed concrete.

“Well,” Lewis said, “at least Doctor Vahlen will be happy.”

Huang spun on his heel, jaw jutting, tears gleaming at the corners of his eyes. “Go fuck yourself, Devil-Dog.”

“What? What'd I say?” It was too late. Huang had already stalked away, rifle strapped over his shoulder, head hung low.

On the horizon, the sun dipped below the jagged Munich skyline.

- - -

Author's Note: Phew, things are accelerating. I'm skipping a lot of boring, no injury missions in favour of the near misses. My units are getting better at surviving though, which hinders a lot of the excitement. Even so, I'm not going to let anyone die for the sake of drama. When an XCOM soldier goes down, you know they went down kicking.

If you enjoy my sci-fi and would like to support my writing ventures (and keep The B-Team going), why not check out my collection of sci-fi shorts, Past the Borders? It's just $2.99 on Kindle, and contains some of my favourite works.

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Otherwise, take care, and hopefully I'll have Chapter 6 for you soon!

New mailing list!

Yeah, it's been a whole year coming, but I've finally gotten off my butt and organised a mailing list.

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Sign up, and you'll be emailed whenever I've got a new release on the way or am running a competition/giveaway. That's it. No blogspam, no begging for sales. Just info on new products and campaigns. Your inbox is safe. Click through and avoid missing out on a single future release!