And I looked, and Behold a Pale Horse...
The team followed the Pershings’ trail north from the west side of Elma, through residential neighborhoods and into the woods. Dr. Rhys proved invaluable here, adapting his wilderness skills of tracking wildlife to the task of following the trail of larger, if not more civilized game. The trail led them all the way to the Great Wall of Elma, where they discovered a roughly twenty-foot-wide section of the spraycrete fortification had been turned into a pile of sand.
An object was found buried in the sand, a small cylinder, with brackets and anchors. When AJ grabbed it with his cybernetic hand, he could feel a faint vibration emitting from the device. The way it was oriented when they found it, along with the brackets, suggested it had been placed on the outside of the wall, and that it had been somehow responsible for reducing the spraycrete into its shapeless components. There were also no obvious tracks or footprints in the heap of sand that was once the wall besides those of AJ and Rhys who had been investigating.
There was no sign of Trevor or the Pershings beyond this point; the trail Dr. Rhys had been following went totally cold. Douglas was called in for drone surveillance, and he had a proposal for AJ that may help in this situation: He had been trying to develop a psionic talent with which he might be able to home in on the location of AJ’s son. This required AJ to allow Douglas to access his mind with his psionic powers, and for the worried father to share a strong memory of he and his son together.
AJ told him of Trevor’s recent issues with a bully at school, and how his son had opened up to him about it, and what AJ had done to try to resolve the issue. Douglas listened to AJ’s story and concentrated for a while. When he opened his eyes again, he told the team he believed he had an approximate location, but that it was roughly twenty miles away. He could attempt to confirm it by sending out a scout drone, but if it were spotted, it could spell curtains for the boy. He left the decision up to AJ, since he had most at stake here.
AJ asked if Douglas could send one of his scout drones over the target area at very high altitude, where it would be almost impossible for the small UAV to be spotted. Douglas agreed with AJ’s plan and dispatched one of his drones to do so. Meanwhile, reinforcements were called into their location via the gunship, and they brought several ATVs with them. AJ, Fayth and Dr. Rhys would cover most of the distance on ATV, then cover the last kilometer or so on foot for a more silent approach. Meanwhile, Rangers would double up on the remaining three ATVs and hold off about a kilometer away as backup.
The site Douglas had homed in on was a ranch house at the foothills of the Olympics, a wide-open clearing carved out of the forest long ago and fenced off for cattle and horses. Near the center of the property was a two-story dwelling, and not far away was a large barn. The grass of the fields had not been tended since the sweeps, and it was knee to waist high in most places except for near the structures. This would make it much easier for the team to infiltrate closer and remain unseen. They had to hurry, though, as a UFO had just been spotted inbound, and it would be at their location soon.
While discussing their plan, Fayth was contacted by Abigail Blythe at Bunker Alpha. Their Ops Center had just been made aware of the new UFO contact thanks to the Resistance comms Bunker November had activated, and the researchers at Alpha had recently been working on an alien comms jammer that they had not yet had an opportunity to field test. She offered their assistance if Fayth felt it would be helpful. The team accepted the offer, unsure of how it would specifically aid them, but figured if the alien’s local comms were down that could only be a good thing for them.
Shortly after Alpha turned on the jamming, AJ spotted movement at the barn: A snake-like humanoid poked its slender body out the barn door and looked around as if it may have heard something, and slowly went back inside. The team’s plan was to have Fayth and Rhys close in on the barn while AJ provided long-range sniper support. When the enemy was fully engaged, the Rangers would come screaming in to provide extra firepower.
The enemy did not follow their carefully laid plan, and one of the snake-things inconveniently looked out a barn window as Fayth and Rhys crept into position, blowing their element of surprise. The X-Com forces also discovered that the Vipers were inconveniently quick and slippery, and before they knew what hit them, both of them were nearly on their heels. It was very difficult to land hits on these agile foes, and things could have gone very badly for them had AJ not been able to fortunately land a couple of precision shots on target that took the foe out of action.
Pershings and Thin Men rushed out of the barn right about the time Fayth and Rhys got their wind back, and between them and AJ were able to cut down this wave. Rhys had spotted another Pershing ducking out the back of the barn and began circling around to cut him off. AJ hauled ass on his ATV, hooping and hollering and making as much of a ruckus as he could to draw attention to himself, and make it seem to the enemy like a much larger force was barreling down on them.
When AJ and Fayth made entry into the barn, they found another Viper up in the loft with its neural whip lashed around Trevor’s neck, holding him up as a body shield. A tense standoff took place where AJ attempted to negotiate for his boy’s life while weighing his options to free his son.
Meanwhile, a different kind of standoff was taking place outside the barn, where Rhys and the Pershing were squared off with guns drawn on each other. The redneck seemed to understand that things weren’t going his way and was intrigued by Rhys’ offer of mere imprisonment and food. When grilled cheese sandwiches and cornbread were put on the metaphorical table, the deal was sealed. Now if only AJ could be having the same luck inside…
The Viper attempted to use the incoming UFO to his advantage, but AJ bluffed that they had already neutralized it and it would not save the alien. It attempted to contact the ship, but the jamming field prevented it.
Rhys had advanced to take custody of the Pershing and could see through a barn window the underside of the loft where the Viper was holding Trevor. AJ and Fayth were at an impasse due to Trevor being used as a shield, but Rhys was under no such limitation. And he would have the drop on the thing. It’s hard to be slippery when you can’t see it coming! AJ told him to take the shot, and he and Fayth would follow up.
Rhys fired his hand laser overhead, through the floorboards of the loft. The shot may not have been as spectacularly deadly as he’d hoped, but it succeeded at one major and vital achievement: The shock of the attack and the injury it caused made the Viper’s hold on Trevor go wild, and for a brief moment, it was not protected by the body of an innocent! AJ took this opportunity and fired.
Almost in a state of panic, the Viper decided that its only chance was to press the attack, and it began by wrenching the whip tight around Trevor’s throat, to show these humans what consequences their treachery would bring them. After choking Trevor out, the Viper quickly slithered forward, dragging the boy’s limp body behind him…
…Only to have the trailing whip catch on something in the barn’s loft. This caused the viper to awkwardly dangle briefly from it’s own weapon before it snapped free, and the alien landed ungracefully on its front, where Fayth was able to drill it, and knock it down.
With the combined fire of all three of them, the Viper was knocked out, and AJ rushed up to vengefully dump the rest of his magazine in the thing. All three of them rushed up to the loft. Rhys was there first, and determined that Trevor was miraculously alive, if barely. Fayth was able to quickly patch him up and stabilize him, and gave him a spritz of plastiflesh, which stung abominably and made Trevor cry out in pain, but it did serve to wake him up considerably.
At this point, while they were all consumed with caring for the boy, the Pershing had picked his rifle back up and joined them in the loft, much to their surprise. He was not hostile and came up to warn them that there was a UFO getting ready to land outside. “Figgered you folks’d want to know,” he admitted sheepishly, and offered his assistance if they would honor the terms of surrender Rhys had offered him earlier.
With a UFO landing, the team prepares for a counterattack!
