Intermission 2: A special message.
Discord sighs and rubs the bridge of his large equine like nose.
“Good evening everyone. I am afraid to say that we will be experiencing some technical difficulties. Namely the writer is going to be very sick in the coming week and will only be able to write when he gets out of the hospital. Or if the doctors say he is well enough to have a laptop or some other manner of internet capable device. But the writer feels bad and has decided to give you not only the longest chapter yet, but also a double update. So dont go complaining that there are mistakes in either chapter because he finished them and posted them at 2 am and he has to be at the hospital by 11 am. Be grateful."
Discord then pulls out a newspaper to help him wait for the next time he appears.
“In the meantime enjoy the tale of a once cruel and sinful man becoming a hero. Followed soon after by the end of the terror mission.”
-China, off the coast of Hong Kong.
The newest agent of China’s Xcom branch, Shaojie Zhang, let his fist slam repeatedly into the face of a Thin man as he had dropped his XM9 when he ran out of magazines for it.
The thin man gurgled its green blood from its mouth as it weakly tried to reach a hand out to either defend itself or plead for mercy; it did not matter because Zhang rolled away from the injured alien infiltrator and pulled out his sidearm, the same H&K VP.70. that he had used when killing his first Sectoid, and when he first joined the Triad and had to kill a man as proof of his loyalty. Zhang still could see the fear in the man's eyes as he was shot by a teenage Zhang.
.
Zhang fired the pistol three times, hitting the Thin man the same number of times in its head. When it died it dispelled a foul poison gas but Zhang was already a safe distance away.
“Bastard.” Zhang said, spitting in the general direction of the alien as he got up. The Xcom team had allowed him and his two trusted guards to join them, though it was not as if they had much choice. With an alien battleship flying overhead they needed all the help they could get.
All around Zhang were the bodies of the “People's Liberation Army Special Operations Forces”. China’s Special Forces. They had joined the Xcom team in assaulting the alien battleship which was somewhat similar in design to an aircraft carrier.
The teams had landed on the ship through rapid transport with 2 Skyrangers. It was almost their own version of D-day. The 14 Chinese Special Forces soldiers moved out with four X-com soldiers.
The battle had been intense, men screaming, bleeding and dying as they were set upon from all sides by thin gray aliens with no mouths and tall skinny human like aliens. It was like a scene from hell with body parts flying around but the job was nearly complete, only 2 alien power generators remained, with the rest having been destroyed or deactivated.
Zhang forced himself to stand up as he lifted his injured body off the metal floor of the alien battleship. His gaze shifted around to see one of his guards by the name of Tao.
“Tao, can you move?” Zhang called out as he slapped a new magazine into his pistol, his XM9 long discarded since it was empty and they were running low on time.
“Yes, my neck hurts but I’m fine.” Tao said as he stood up and examined himself, some large green brute of an alien had lobbed a grenade him, Tao’s life had been saved because three of the Chinese soldiers in front of him had absorbed most of the blast.
“What was that thing?” Tao asked as he made sure his helmet was secure, while wondering why Zhang opted not to wear one, then he remembered the answer, Zhang embraced death.
“No idea, but we are out of time Tao, if we don’t take out those last two power generators this thing will make a full course correction and head right back to Hong Kong.” Zhang said as he forced himself to look over a small wall of the ship and saw in the distance Hong Kong already burning from the first pass that the ship had made, dropping aliens down into the city, as well as blasting its guns at any form of defense. Everything from police stations to hospitals to fire departments, the aliens wanted nothing getting in the way of their destructive assault.
“I know.” Tao said and felt an amazing wave of relief as he saw his machine gun was still intact. He hefted it up and looked over his shoulder to see his rocket launcher, an M3 Recoilless rifle, as it was called. Or just the Carl Gustav Launcher.
Tao inspected it and found only a high explosive round that was already loaded into the weapon, but no matter where he looked he could not find the shrapnel round, or “the shredder” as someone had painted on the side of it.
“We need to get moving.” Zhang said with all seriousness as he collected the grenades from the nearby bodies of fallen humans, taking the time to make sure he grabbed a flare gun that was the signal to pick them up before the ship fell out of the sky with its last power nodes offline. As Zhang holstered the flare gun he also made sure to step on the necks of any aliens close to them to make sure they were dead. Tao did the same.
“I guess we should find ourselves blessed, at least the other team succeeded in planting the devices to draw the ship off course.” Zhang said and tried the earpiece on his left ear.
“Commander can you hear me?” Zhang asked, when he received no response he tapped his earpiece and tried again before turning to Tao.
“I'll try.” He said, understanding what Zhang wanted before he even asked. Despite his effort there was no signal, something the aliens had seemed to be jamming human communications.
“It must be hell on the ground.” Tao said while he picked up his MG, a regular ballistic one since the laser weapons had all gone to the teams already on the ground.
Zhang held his VP close to his chest as he moved over to one of the large energy doors, taking a position on one side, before waving Tao over. Tao took his time coming over since all the weight on his body slowed him down and he did not want to injure his ankles or back before the final battle. As Tao walked over he began wondering absentmindedly what he had done to cause fate to make him a heavy weapons soldier again.
Tao had served a tour in the Chinese army previously and afterwards promised never to do so again. Tao took his position on the opposite side of the door, nodding to Zhang who slammed his fist into the strange holographic button that was always at the center of every energy door.
It deactivated with a loud electric noise as Zhang rushed through, being able to move the swiftest of the two. He rolled across the smooth alien metal floor until he felt his back press against one of the alien computer consoles. He was lucky to take cover when he did, for one of the Empire’s combat clones had sighted him and opened fire with its heavy plasma rifle. Large bolts of green plasma slammed into the computer next to Zhang, causing it to let out a blaring alarm before finally melting from the heat of the weapon.
“Tao! I need cover fire.” Zhang cried out and watched his friend pop out of his cover on the other side of the door way and step through, holding the trigger to the machine gun down as he slowly made his way over to Zhang.
The large alien was covered from head to toe in metallic green armor, its large hands and arms big enough to beat a bear to death with and crush the life out of any man. The large hulking beast was knocked down by the flurry of high velocity rounds from Tao’s weapon, but it soon got back up and rolled to cover behind one of the cylindrical power nodes. Firing wildly from its cover as green blood that almost glowed with an otherworldly hue leaked from the large alien’s chest, in a river, only to pool near its feet.
“Zhang! Go get the other power node!” Tao yelled and kept up the continuous stream of suppressive fire to keep the enemy combatant from moving.
Zhang wasted no time and sprinted straight for the power node that was opposite the one the alien soldier was hiding behind. With a leap Zhang narrowly avoided a plasma round that seemed to have come out from nowhere, just barely missing Zhang’s head, and making him thankful for his short white hair that wasn’t on fire. Once in cover he pulled one of the grenades from his belt and with a quick movement of his fingers he removed the pin from the grenade and watched the spoon fly off, the grenade fully prepared to detonate.
“Fire in the hole!” Zhang cried out and lobbed the fragmentation grenade to where he thought the shots had come from. He was rewarded by the death cry of a Sectoid.
“Zhang! Hurry I’m almost out!” Tao yelled as loud as he could as he fired his MG from the hip, trying his best to keep the large alien soldier and two Thin men down. The two thin men were different than many of their brethren. These had very green skin, no wigs to cover their bald heads and no sunglasses to cover their bright reptilian eyes. For clothing they wore brightly colored red skin tight jumpsuits that made it fairly obvious that the thin men in fact had no gender.
“Just hold on!” Zhang said as he forced open a small panel in the glowing power node, praying he did not get a deadly electric shock.
“Running low!” he yelled and kept firing, the barrel of his gun producing some steam as it glowed red from being fired continuously.
“Almost…got it!” Zhang said as he felt the vibration of energy coming from the machine simply cease and the ship lurch slightly before righting itself. But the sudden movement cause Tao to lose his aim, the barrel of his heavy weapon firing into the air, giving the enemy soldier time to take a lethal shot.
The alien that would later be dubbed a ‘Muton’, rose out of cover and with the precision of a combat veteran, fired a three round burts of shots that soared through the air and struck Tao directly in his face, vaporizing his head and ending his life in a split second.
Tao’s headless body fell to its knees, dropping its weapon before finally laying lifeless on the ground as the charred stump of his its neck sizzled from the plasma damage.
“No!” Zhang cried out in fury as he saw one of the few from his old triad life who had sided with him die before his very eyes.
“Bastards!” Zhang yelled and stood up form cover, pulling out another grenade as he ran over to the Muton, leaping on top of the power node and onto the Muton with a single bound, thanking years of exercise and running from police when he was nothing but an orphan boy on the streets.
The alien soldier roared and flailed his body around as the human climbed upon its body. Zhang wasted no time and prepared to use his final grenade.
“Say, ah!” Zhang yelled and pulled the pin with his thumb before slamming the grenade into the neck armor of the alien, making sure it was nice and stuck in.
Zhang kicked himself away from the Muton and watched as it roared and grabbed at its own neck, seconds before it exploded in a gush of gore that rained down upon Zhang, the Muton's headless body fell to the ground with a thud as it leaked fluids like a headless chicken. Zhang rose to his feet in a flash and held up his pistol.
He expected to see plasma fire coming to end his life, but instead he saw the Thin men, the last two of the alien crew retreating deeper into the ship, retreating in fear of the savage human.
“You two are lucky.” Zhang spat in the alien's direction as he walked over to Tao and nodded his head in respect, wishing his friend a peaceful rest in the afterlife if there was one.
With a tug he removed the flare gun from his hip and then fired it into the air. A green trail of smoke went up into the air, the signal for pick up after a mission complete. Zhang grabbed the Carl Gustav launcher from Tao’s corpse so that he could blow the last power node before the Sky ranger arrived. He ran to the highest point available, some type of tower that Zhang could not discern its purpose but wouldn’t complain. He aimed though the scope of the launcher and held off on pressing the trigger for a moment.
“Sleep well with the fish.” He said and pulled the trigger, the recoil of the launcher was next to none as the rocket raced out of the launcher and slammed into the power node, creating an explosion that rocked the whole ship as it lost power, and soon began falling out of the sky and straight down.
Within minutes of the ship falling from the sky a Skyranger flew overhead, with a loud mechanical roar the plane hovered above Zhang and the co-pilot reached a hand down to held Zhang up, when on the plane he made a hand sign to the co-pilot, telling him to take the plane away. It sped away at high speed from the falling enemy ship that soon began sinking like the titanic, deep into the ocean.
Zhang only watched in silence, thinking of all those lost not only in his own home or on the alien ship, but everywhere, it made him feel weak, but that would soon be rectified, as in the distance he saw helicopters and ships racing to the crash zone to find whatever scrap and salvage they could from the downed alien battleship. Before the doors to the Skyranger closed completely Zhang took a moment to look up into the stars and smiled.
“We’ll be coming for you soon enough.” He said, promising to even the casualty numbers with the aliens.