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Alpha Site – P3X-984 – October 2000
Commander Sharp looked around. ‘I didn’t have time to make much of a speech before we went through the gate so here’s the straight facts’ he began, looking around the twenty or so SGC personnel who had been available to grab their gear and go into action immediately. ‘By now an alien vessel will be dropping troops into the X-COM base in Poland and our job is to reinforce the garrison and secure the base’ he said. ‘About three quarters of you are SGC personnel so let me make this clear, some of you will almost certainly die if you follow me back through this gate’ he told them flatly. ‘The enemy we will be facing is smart, uses proper small-unit tactics and is packing weaponry that makes these things look like pop-guns’ he stated, holding up his L2A1 Laser Rifle. ‘This isn’t like fighting Jaffa, we’re marching into hell so if anyone wants to back out because they never signed up for this shit then go ahead, I won’t criticise, you’d have to be fucking insane not to stay here’ he said.
A few of the SG Team members looked around nervously but nobody said anything until eventually Colonel O’Neill spat on the ground. ‘You come to Earth uninvited you get shot at’ he said simply. ‘That’s what I signed up for’ he declared.
‘Indeed O’Neill’ Teal’c agreed. ‘I for one am eager to test myself against such a foe.’
‘You poor dumb bastards’ Sharp said shaking his head before breaking out into a grin. ‘Shoot anything that isn’t human, keep shooting it until it fall over and shoot it once more in the head to make sure’ he advised. ‘They’ve all got quick reaction times so don’t miss or they’ll return fire before you get another try, and they won’t miss.’
‘Sir the Alpha site guards want to come along’ Carter announced indicating another half dozen troops who had been guarding the gate when they arrived in the camp.
‘The more the merrier’ Sharp responded, ‘if they’re shooting at you they aren’t shooting at me’ he joked. ‘Okay I’m making the X-COM vet in each SG team the team leader for the duration of his mission...’
‘Like hell!’ O’Neill exclaimed.
‘Shut up’ Sharp snapped back, ‘Andianov you and your people follow me when we arrive, I’m going to head straight for the access shaft with the SG3 jarheads there’ he told her indicating the only SGC troops who looked enthusiastic more than apprehensive, ‘the rest of you secure the hanger bays, the chances are they came in through there too’ he said. ‘Listen up O’Neill, and this goes for the rest of you officers that might feel pissed at being put under the command of an X-COM grunt’ he said. ‘We’ve done this shit before and you haven’t’ he said, ‘I want to win, and you all want to live, so put your egos on hold and listen to the experts’ he ordered. ‘Shit, we’re the only ones that know our way around the base anyhow’ he added.
‘One of these days I’m going to drop you on your ass... Sir’ O’Neill replied, fighting back the urge to protest further.
‘God I hope so because if you do it means we both live through the next half hour’ Sharp replied. ‘Alright, the DHD should be plugged in so we’re going to Poland’ he said. ‘Dial Earth’ he ordered.
‘O’Neill I am making you my Second in Command’ Sergeant Andianov told the Colonel, barely able to resist a smirk. ‘If only because Doctor Jackson is not here’ she couldn’t resist adding.
‘It’s karma for all those non-coms I got to do my paperwork over the years’ O’Neill muttered.
‘Quiet in the ranks’ Andianov ordered.
‘Enjoy it while you can Sergeant’ O’Neill told her, checking his Laser Rifle as the Stargate powered up and the wormhole back to Earth engaged with the characteristic “kawoosh”.
Sharp switched on his radio headset. ‘This is Commander Sharp at the Alpha Site, is the gateroom secure over?’ he asked, then listened for the reply. ‘Okay they say the gateroom in Poland is still secure’ he announced, ‘it’s in an annex to the rest of the base because it was added later’ he said then listened again. ‘Once we get into the main complex we could be knee deep in Sectoids and they say Cyberdisk’s too, for Christ’s sake don’t shoot up a cyberdisk from less that thirty yards because when they blow up next to you the only recognisable part of you left will be a pair of smoking combats boots.’
‘Perhaps you will now appreciate how it feels for me as a former First Prime to be what you call a grunt O’Neill?’ Teal’c suggested as he raised the stock of his L2A1 to his shoulder to look down the sights at a distant tree. At a visceral level he still somehow preferred a staff-weapon but its total all-round inferiority to the X-COM Laser Rifle had been made very evident over the last few months so he now carried the latter himself plus a Zat'nik'tel as a more traditionally comforting backup. The SGC had yet to receive any of the new L2A2 Laser Rifles with an integral Zat-type weapon under the barrel but they were due soon.
‘I always thought the first woman to boss SG1 was going to be me’ Carter announced as they got ready to move. ‘After you retired I mean Sir’ she added quickly.
‘GO GO GO’ Sharp bellowed and charged up the stone steps followed by SG3 and then Andianov leading SG1. There had better be something to shoot at on the other side O’Neill thought to himself as he plunged through the event horizon.
Back at Cheyenne Mountain Daniel waited nervously for news, he had volunteered to go but Commander Sharp vetoed the idea immediately, being left behind was the worst feeling of all he decided and wondered how General Hammond dealt with it every day. If he had asked he would have been told that it was stress like that which made your hair fall out.
X-COM Base One (Europe) – Earth – October 2000
Colonel Jack O’Neill looked around the gate room. ‘Ours is bigger’ he declared, listening to the sounds of what he assumed was gunfire.
‘It’s what you do with it that counts Colonel’ Commander Sharp couldn’t resist replying earning a derisory snort from Sergeant Andianov before she could stop herself. ‘Okay the double doors lead into a corridor heading for the access shaft to the surface’ he continued ignoring the Russian. ‘It splits into a crossroads fifty yards up, the elevator is straight ahead and the two hangers are to the right and left’ he told them. ‘It’s a wide corridor because we had to get the stargate through it so hug the walls’ he advised. ‘The bugs probably won’t be expecting us so hit them hard and fast before they get their shit back together’ he ordered. ‘Remember there are friendlies in here so watch your fire, that also goes for not shooting up the laboratories or the workshops unless you really have to.’
Carter took a breath and let it out slowly. There had been three X-COM troopers already here when they arrived preparing to hold the gate room if necessary and they were now getting ready to open the doors into the main complex. Fortunately the Sectoid invaders seemed more interested in moving in the other direction towards the Research and Development and Manufacturing areas, Carter reasoned they were just as interested in getting hold of the latest Earth military technology as the humans were interested in getting hold of theirs.
The eight virtually identical X-COM bases that between them now guarded the planet were all laid out so that the two hangers and access shaft were at one end of the base and the extensive laboratories and machine-shops were at the other, with stores, living quarters and other base areas containing the radar, alien containment and defensive missile batteries in between. It was a uniform, utilitarian and frankly bland design of steel reinforced concrete and fluorescent lighting that wasn’t really too much different from the SGC only with X-COM and United Nations insignia on everything. In the event the aliens managed to reach the containment areas where their brethren were being held they would quickly discover just how failsafe the system was, any unauthorised breach would result in nerve-gas being pumped into the cells, there was even a backup system if the gas didn’t work which would incinerate the prisoners, nobody and nothing escaped.
‘Alright we do this quick, nasty and with as much violence as possible’ Commander Sharp declared. ‘Crank her open’ he ordered the troops by the doors and they pressed a button that started them sliding apart, initially just a crack so they could check the corridor was clear then wider to let Sharp lead the mix of SGC and X-COM soldiers through.
Sharp moved to the right hand wall of the corridor followed by the marines of SG3 and their own X-COM member Sergeant Breytenbach a sullen South African who Andianov freely admitted was a better marksman that she was “but not as fast”. She herself led SG1 along left hand wall as the two teams spearheaded the counter-attack, the others waiting to follow-on behind once the crossroads in the corridor was secured.
O’Neill heard a brief high pitched, almost siren like noise, at least he thought he did at first but after a second he realised he had heard it inside his head.
‘Shit, psionics’ Sharp growled. ‘They must have an officer or too with them, so much for the element of surprise’ he said and began to move faster.
‘They can sense your thoughts, see your location in their minds’ Andianov said. ‘We learned that early on, but only Sectoid Squad leaders seem to be able to do it.’
‘Their grunts are too dumb then’ O’Neill replied, ‘guess they don’t get promoted over their officers’ he couldn’t help adding as Andianov and Sharp reached the crossroads and quickly looked around the corner.
Sharp signalled the other teams to move up and then moved across the corridor junction. At the end of another short length of corridor lay wooden double doors leading to a small storeroom then the access shaft to the surface. The sound of firing was closer now, and intermittent explosions echoed down the concrete tunnels, he signalled for the teams to split and as the rest of the troops headed for the hangers Andianov and Breytenbach stood back against the wall on either side prepared to kick them open, weapons up and ready to go as the others aimed between them.
‘Go’ Sharp ordered and the two X-COM soldiers kicked the doors hard, slamming them open revealing a small solitary grey figure under five feet tall and carrying a large metallic rifle almost as big as it was. The sectoid officer might have sensed their location but the alien grunt now stood in front of an open doorway still looked pretty surprised as it momentarily found itself looking down the barrels of ten Laser Rifles.
As a race they had been genetically engineered by Loki to be stronger, tougher and faster than the original Asgard clones but they still weren’t remotely enhanced enough to do much more than think “shit” in a circumstance like this, and although the language was indecipherable that was, as it happens, pretty much the only thing that went through the sectoid’s mind in the fraction of a second before its brain, and the rest of its body was burned through by a barrage of amplified coherent light.
Andianov was already moving before the sectoids corpse hit the floor, rifle up and firing as she went through the door, the sectoids were smart enough to suffer momentary shock and even morale problems so they could sometimes be intimidated and shaken-up by suppressive fire, at least that was the idea. ‘Chyort voz'mi!’ she exclaimed, throwing herself to the floor as another sectoid inside the room opened up with a Heavy Plasma Rifle set on burst fire.
The first shot of the three missed completely and went straight over her head striking the door behind her and blasting it to pieces, showering fragments everywhere. The second hit the doorframe and blew a crater in the concrete it was set into.
Moving at beyond hypersonic velocity shot number three of the burst went clean through the doorway and narrowly missing Breytenbach instead slammed into one of the SG3 Marines in the corridor. The effects were appalling, the particle bolt of superheated green plasma simply burned through his chest armour like it wasn’t there and blasted his torso apart sending a spray of scorched flesh, rib fragments and blood in all directions as the sheer kinetic impact took effect and blew him backwards.
The sectoid never got the chance to fire again, Breytenbach put a burst of his own into the creature before it got the chance, his laser pulses cauterising the wounds they caused ensuring a far less messy demise than that of the unfortunate marine.
‘Don’t stop, keep moving, mourn later’ Sharp bellowed and charged into the room followed by the South African, Andianov herself quickly getting up off the ground.
Less shocked than the remaining Marines O’Neill was the next through the doorway, he had lost people before, far more than he would care to recollect, and though it was heartless perhaps the fact the SG3 member pouring what was left of his blood onto the brushed concrete floor wasn’t one of his team meant he could handle the death far more easily. Carter almost lost her footing on the slippery surface but followed her Colonel as Teal’c took a different tack and grabbed the nearest marine pulling him along with the rest of them. ‘Seek vengeance’ he said simply which seemed to do the trick admirably, the veteran of innumerable battles the Jaffa knew they could not pause to think about it as they left their broken friend behind.
‘Why the hell didn’t you make these places easier to defend?’ O’Neill asked as he stepped over a sectoid body and found himself looking at the remains of an X-COM soldier who must have died in here earlier on defending the base.
‘Why the hell don’t you have big automated guns in the gateroom at Cheyenne and why did we have to install proper defensive surface-to-air missile batteries around the place?’ Sharp retorted, ‘because we’re all idiots’ he stated. ‘If I don’t get killed here I’m getting rotary staff-weapons and maybe the laser cannon from the Firestorms set up at the access points of every fucking base we have’ he declared. ‘The next aliens that drop in on us likes this checks out immediately’ he declared, putting down his L2A1 and picking up the dead troopers upgraded L2A2 with a larger capacity power-cell and the trademark plain thirty-millimetre diameter metallic tube under the barrel which held the X-COM copy of a zat gun. He checked the charge indicator and fired a shot into the floor to verify it was in working order before thinking of using it.
Breytenbach had already reached the next door and squatted down ready to carefully push it open. The bugs liked to ambush you, unlike Jaffa who seemed to like charging down machineguns and laser rifles like idiots.
‘Clear behind’ the South African whispered and slowly pushed the door open a crack.
A bright green bolt of Heavy Plasma blasted through the door at chest height and kept going, destroying a water-filled fire-extinguisher hanging on the far wall in a grenade-like explosion which threw shrapnel everywhere, some ricocheting off Carter’s armour and one piece putting a small gash in her forehead. Well that’s one unorthodox way to get a Purple Heart O’Neill thought as everyone started firing back through the door. ‘Fire in the hole!’ Sharp shouted pitching a concussion grenade through the largest hole in the now riddled wooden door, the South African next to it rolling away clear.
The explosion blew the already shattered door off its hinges and Sharp hoped that the store-room he had just blown up wasn’t filled with anything too prone to secondary explosions, too inflammable or too expensive. ‘Move’ he ordered and once again Andianov beat Breytenbach to the punch, getting into the next room before he did. They moved damn well, O’Neill had to admit, Sharp himself already positioned to follow or to cover a quick retreat.
The remains of a sectoid were spread out over the floor amidst a pile of broken crates. ‘If I see any of the rest of you clearing a room that way, or doing reconnaissance by high-explosive, I’ll kick your ass’ Sharp said just before a titanic explosion in the distance seemed to rock the whole base.
‘What the hell was that?’ O’Neill asked as they took up positions using the remaining crates as makeshift cover.
‘Either someone whacked a cyberdisk or a bug threw one of those grenades they use’ Sharp replied. ‘They go up like an oversized fucking satchel charge’ he said. ‘Teal’c you and SG3 pull back to the last room in case they throw one in here’ he ordered. ‘Don’t want all to arrive in the afterlife together thinking what a bunch of stupid bastards we all are.’
‘Indeed Commander’ Teal’c agreed, ‘better that some of us get the opportunity to arrive many years from now and mock you’ he said completely deadpan.
‘The room with the Access Shaft is up ahead...’ he began before he was interrupted by the door leading to the shaft being apparently kicked open from the other side and a pair of Heavy Plasma Rifles appeared apparently being blind-fired by sectoids stood either side of the doorway on the other side of the wall.
They were all returning fire when a grenade-sized high-velocity purple sphere flew through the same doorway and exploded against a wall next to Carter. A strange concussive explosion immediately dropped her, O’Neill and Sharp to the ground in an unconscious heap, the latter falling sideways and hitting his head against the corner of a plastic packing crate, he’d be feeling that one when he regained consciousness which hopefully wouldn’t be under a sectoid’s laser scalpel.
Andianov kept firing and must have hit one of the opposition on the other side because an alien scream of pain rang out and one of the blind-fired Plasma Weapons dropped to the ground.
Moving up and firing his own Laser-Rifle one-handed Teal’c pulled out his zat’nik’tel and fired a salvo of repeated energy blasts at the opposition, another more muted cry indicated he successfully hit another one though the remaining Heavy Plasma Rifle blind-firing through the doorway continued to spew charged bolts of certain death... until the magazine ran out.
Andianov thought quickly as well as moved like it and she immediately charged to the attack throwing herself through the doorway and landing at the feet of a now extremely distressed alien invader who was trying to eject his ammunition clip and load a fresh one. Andianov boiled his brains with a single shot up at his head at nearly point-blank range then finding herself by the Access Shaft rolled to take up a position lying prone covering the elevator doorway. ‘Breytenbach get in here’ she yelled, the South African moving up behind her, dropping to one knee rifle ready.
A number of sectoid and a few X-COM bodies from the fighting before they arrived were scattered around. ‘SG3 with me’ Breytenbach yelled as Teal’c checked the unmoving bodies of Major Carter and then Colonel O’Neill behind them.
‘They are alive, merely stunned’ Teal’c announced. ‘The device fired at us must work like a Goa’uld Shock Grenade’ he said.
‘Try giving them a stimulant shot from your medkit’ Andianov called back, eyes still focused on the elevator and rifle ready to kill the next motherless clone asshole that crossed her path.
‘I will try’ Teal’c replied, unhooking the device from his belt and pressing it against Colonel O’Neill’s neck before triggering an injection of stimulant drugs. The X-COM medkits were a miracle of design, they could immediately seal wounds with a substance that instantly clotted blood, inject strong painkillers and if necessary drugs that would practically raise you from a coma, albeit with some strain on your heart.
Lying flat on his back where Teal’c had rolled him O’Neill almost instantly sat bolt upright, eyes wide open and with a yelp. ‘You are back O’Neill’ Teal’c announced. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ he asked.
‘Three’ the Colonel replied in confusion.
‘Only one O’Neill’ Teal’c corrected him. ‘If you meet three sectoids shoot the one in the middle’ he advised before moving on to Major Carter. ‘You were stunned by an alien grenade of some type’ he said before giving Carter an injection of her own causing her to instantly awaken too with a noise that was akin to a slurred “Yarf fragglesnoop”.
Andianov collared one of the marines who had moved up. ‘We are going to the left’ she told him, ‘the rest of you move to the right’ she ordered. ‘Teal’c wake them up then cover the elevator doors’ she called back. The firing elsewhere in the complex seemed to be rising in intensity, she hoped it was the last sectoids being crushed as they deserved and not a last stand by the SGC and X-COM personnel.
O’Neill shook his head clear as Teal’c injected Sharp and then returning his medkit to his belt moved to support the others as requested. ‘You okay Carter?’ the Colonel asked, getting up slowly and retrieving his rifle before checking the Commander who seemed to be waking up more slowly, likely because of the evident blow to his head.
‘I’m woozy but fine Sir’ Carter replied reaching for her own dropped weapon.
‘Glad to hear it’ O’Neill responded then with a barely concealed grin he delivered a stinging slap with his free hand to Sharp’s cheek snapping him around instantly.
‘What.. where?’ Sharp mumbled.
‘Got stunned, back now, grab rifle, kill bugs’ O’Neill told him.
‘Head hurts’ Sharp replied in the same tone picking up his L2A2 and rising to a squat. ‘That’s a new one on me’ he announced, blinking a few times. His head felt like it was full of cotton wool which was only a good thing if you were half way through a bottle of decent Scotch.
‘Maybe they wanted to take X-COM people alive for interrogation’ Carter suggested. ‘We zat them don’t we?’ she asked rhetorically offering a hand to help him up though still not completely steady herself.
Already mobile O’Neill moved up to join Teal’c and watched Andianov and Breytenbach leading their respective marines. ‘Follow the Sergeant there’ O’Neill told him, ‘I’ll shoot anything that might still step out of the elevator’ he said, getting his rifle ready.
‘Yes O’Neill’ Teal’c replied and started to move to support the Russian.
Before the Colonel could yell a warning or fire a thin grey arm raised from among the bodies laying all around and aimed a rifle-like weapon at the Jaffa. A single shot of plasma hit him in the back and sent Teal’c sprawling to the ground
O’Neill fired a snap-shot which instantly killed the sectoid and dashed to Teal’c’s side. ‘Shit’ he said, seeing the hole burned in his armour.
‘I am still alive O’Neill’ Teal’c announced.
‘Keep still you’ve got a hole in your back I could fit my fist in’ he said reaching for his own medkit. ‘Carter you and Sharp watch the damn elevator’ he ordered. ‘I don’t want to get shot in the back too’ he added stopping the Major running to join them too as he sealed the wound. He wouldn’t bleed to death now hopefully anyhow.
‘Standard Plasma Rifle’ Commander Sharp observed. ‘A Heavy would have killed him outright’ he said, joining Major Carter.
A short lived flurry of gunfire from the direction Breytenbach had headed was punctuated by a human scream and then a number of apparent death cry of a sectoid. They did not know it at the time but after another of the marines was killed by a single alien waiting in ambush the South African had also just had his left arm blown off at the elbow by a bolt of plasma. Another SG3 Marine gunned down the sectoid responsible as Breytenbach gave himself a shot of painkiller, sealed his own wound and drew his pistol because the rifle was too awkward one-handed.
Working on Teal’c injury O’Neill heard the same sound in his head he had experienced earlier only this time it was accompanied by a sudden feeling of dread which he fought back. Damn aliens trying to screw with my mind, he decided, ‘kiss my ass’ he thought as loudly as he could.
Carter then felt something different in her own mind, something attempting control, it reminded her a little of playing host to the Tokra Jolinar and she fought it but she felt herself slipping, only her previous experience of her mind being hijacked gave her the ability to hold out this long. ‘It’s... trying... to... control... me’ she forced out, dropping her rifle so they couldn’t use her to kill her friends.
‘Sweet dreams’ Sharp replied and shot her with the zat gun fitted to his rifle. In the old days they had to kill X-COM troops that were mind-controlled by the aliens, stunning them was much easier on the conscience he decided.
Another explosion rocked the base and the distant firing began to slow down. In the end casualties proved to be relatively light, less than a quarter of the reinforcements who came through the gate being killed in action and only 4 more wounded not counting Teal’c or Breytenbach, the unexpected counter-attack had caught the sectoid foe by surprise and they had already split into small groups to search through the base when struck by the hammer blow of numerical superiority.
Near one of the living quarters, which were normally home to the hundreds of evacuated scientists, technicians and engineers who were ordinarily based here, the marines of SG-12 and a pair of X-COM troops who had been at the base since the sectoids arrived were involved in a vicious firefight with three or perhaps four aliens who had decided to dig in and make a stand of it after being beaten back out of one of the aircraft hangers. ‘These little grey fuckers don’t quit’ one of the marines yelled out as a burst of plasma fire went past his head and blew a hole through one of the thin internal walls that divided the accommodation areas into rooms.
‘You should see the big green fuckers in action’ one of the X-COM troopers replied, returning fire with a series of shots from his laser rifle. ‘At least these things fall over when you shoot them’ he said, ‘Muton’s just get pissed off’ he declared.
‘Need some help?’ a US Army Ranger from SG-15 asked loudly. ‘We greased the last bastard next block over, lost a man doing it too’ he added bitterly.
‘Shit yeah’ one of the marines replied. ‘You keep their heads down and I’ll get over there and put them in a crossfire from the left.’
‘Remember that they can shoot through any cover you try using’ the second X-COM trooper with an Australian accent told them before he was drowned out by the first making a triumphant whoop as he performed a perfect snap-shot and caught a sectoid hiding behind a makeshift barricade of lockers and wooden furniture right between the eyes killing it instantly.
‘Fuck yeah!’ a marine responded appreciatively. ‘Let’s finish this’ he added with a crazed grin as a barrage of continuous laser fire from numerous human troops bracketed the remaining sectoids, it was getting close to the end-game as other soldiers did likewise elsewhere in the complex.
The base started to rumble as the alien ship which had landed on top of the underground installation lifted off again. It had used a new ECM system to avoid the defensive missiles fired at it on the way in but now a Firestorm loaded with naquadah-enhanced nuclear warheads was inbound fast and it didn’t want to risk finding out if the ECM worked on the humans air-launched missiles too or not. It had already failed its mission so now the objective was to flee.
As the sectoid vessel outran the Firestorm Interceptor and headed for space the last shot fired inside the base was taking place as a member of SG-4 found a panicked sectoid cowering in a corner, weapon abandoned. Lacking a zat gun but deciding they'd want it alive he shot it in the kneecap, after watching his friends killed the creatures cry of pain was damn satisfying he thought happily as he grabbed it by its injured leg and dragged it along the ground behind him back to the others.
The alien Squad leader which had been trying to get into O’Neills mind had been knocked unconscious by the nearby explosion of a cyberdisk, the heavily armoured compact alien hovertank eventually destroyed by multiple hits from all directions. When it awoke the sectoid officer found itself strapped to an interrogation couch, a psionic suppressor band around its head preventing it from influencing the humans stood around it as they prepared to strip its mind of useful information, a process X-COM had come to call “Mind-Rape”.
One of the humans leaned over the sectoid and looked into the large black eyes which gave it such good night-vision. ‘Well this has buggered your plans for conquering the universe’ the X-COM scientist declared in a New Zealand accent and with a vicious smirk on his face before reaching for the electrodes.
That the information retrieved from its mind and the new stun-grenade launcher were themselves thought by X-COM to be more than worth the losses of personnel in the attack was not relayed to General Hammond, it was considered likely he wouldn’t grasp the big picture as he wrote out letters to the families of the fallen SG Team members.