[FFML] [Fanfic][Ranma / X-COM] The Road to Cydonia Chapter 19

[Justin Wagner]

---notes---

Sorry its been so long since the last update, but that's how things turn
out sometimes... there was the usual RL things to take care of, and this
chapter was actually one of the harder ones to finish to my
satisfaction. More than perhaps any other chapter, I kept second
guessing how I wanted to approach this arc of the story through the
different characters. This was and is also the only arc in the story
where I planned to utilize an alien POV to a significant degree, so how
to handle that just right delayed it as well. Well, I guess I'm rambling
at this point. I don't normally write authors notes at all - let me take
advantage of this one to say again 'thanks!' for all the reviews people
leave for TRTC and the occasional emails as well. I'm sure I've
forgotten to sent replies to some of you posing questions and the like,
so if you're reading this, I'm sorry about that. It definitely doesn't
mean I didn't read what you went me.

To clear just a few things up, also: there's a lot of action and grim
XCOM work in these next two chapters, but then it'll go back to clearing
up the relationships and the like between the characters. There's
usually little room for that during missions and combat, and I like to
keep a sort of divide between the characters' professional selves as
soldiers and their 'traditional' selves when at the base or off active
duty. But keep suggesting things in reviews or emails and send me your
thoughts! I may well use them!

Previous chapters of TRTC can be found on FFN
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2314624/1/The_Road_to_Cydonia

or on my site (which also hosts a UFOpedia and Character Info)
http://www.wagnergrp.com/JBW_Website/Fanfiction/TRTC.htm

---/notes---



For six years, mankind has waged a Secret War against an enemy from
Beyond the Stars. The UNETCO timetable moves ever forward, but a new
complication has arisen as the alien forces in the Far East surge out in
unexpected numbers and with surprising fury. India and Juliet Squads
have taken the Procyon, a cargo ship operated by the alien enthralled
Sirius Group, and uncovered the existence of a terrible chemical weapon
based on Chryssalid Venom. But already the Amazon village has been made
a martyr - the first field test of a weapon the Sirius Group hopes to
use against the city of Singapore.

-----

The Road to Cydonia
Chapter XVIX

Twilight of the Amazons (Part 1)

-----

Written by:
Capn Chryssalid
jbraveboy at gmail.com

-----

The Skyranger wasn't as fast or smooth a ride as a Lightning; carrying
with it as it did all the general discomforts of normal air travel. As a
vehicle, it could actually move more cargo and soldiers than the human-
built UFO, but it felt much more cramped since it was all confined to a
tube rather than a circular space. The Skyranger's great saving grace,
however, was that it ran on conventional fuels rather than irreplaceable
Elerium 115. There was no rush to get the two squads back home to
Seiran, so Command had let them take the 'flying greyhound.'

The men and women of India and Juliet Squads sat in metal and plastic
seats that folded out of the wall. The arrangement lead to a lot of back
and forth jostling whenever the plane accelerated or maneuvered, though
the vertical take off had been surprisingly easy going. All things taken
together, it was a far cry from even flying coach on a commercial
airplane, but then the Skyranger was of Russian design; rugged and
reliable, but not exactly comfortable.

Shampoo sighed, looking around her. The two squad leaders sat opposite
to one another with their helmets on, conferencing with Command and
Control back at Seiran. She couldn't hear what was going on, but it had
to be important, and probably had something to do with their change in
heading. She didn't like being kept out of the proverbial loop, but she
understood the meaning of seniority and rank, and the privileges it
enjoyed.

'It must be nice being a Squad Leader,' she thought, watching the two
boys. Maybe, if Ranma and Ryouga had ended up on the same team somehow,
she would have been given the rank of Special Lieutenant. She wouldn't
have much minded having a good follower like Konatsu on her team, and
though Mousse was annoying, she could count on him doing what she said
without question. Identifying a third team mate was a bit harder: Ukyou
was out by default, and Ryu seemed too... strong willed and independent
minded. All that left was Kuno.

Said kendoist looked up from opening a small plastic package, somehow
sensing that she was looking in his direction. Smiling in that stupid,
typically outsider male way of his, Kuno held up another little yellow
box identical to the one he was ripping open.

"Calorie Mate?" he asked, offering her one of the mini-rations.

She was tempted to brush him off (he was the weakest of them all in her
opinion, with an addle-minded personality only a mother could love) but
instead she put up a polite smile of her own and accepted. Her great
grandmother had always drilled into her not to look a gift horse in the
mouth, and she never had. Or as the Amazon saying went: "opportunities
are for seizing." If Kuno wanted to part with some of the few rations
they'd each been allocated pre-mission, then she would be happy to
oblige his geniality.

Ripping open the package and folding it back, she took a bite and
silently savored the jolt of chocolate flavor that almost brought a
smile to her lips. It was typical of Japanese food, as she saw it:
stiff, utilitarian and unsophisticatedly bland, but pretty convenient.
She couldn't think of anything suitably Chinese that she'd rather have
eaten and that could have been stuffed into a water-tight pouch all day.

Chewing, she looked around again, checking on everyone else crammed into
the bumpy sardine can that was their ride. Konatsu was trying to sleep,
despite being in what couldn't have been a comfortable position trying
to keep his head propped upright. Ukyou was also either asleep or
dozing, taking advantage of the ninja boy by resting her head on his
shoulder and propping her stupidly big spatula weapon against the floor
and the wall to keep her body from slipping. She was probably drooling
all over him, too, but predictably Konatsu just seemed happy to be her
compliant male pillow.

Without meaning to or wanting to, she briefly thought about how she
could have used Mousse in the same role, but she didn't want to give the
clueless fool any ideas. Besides, he and Ryu were looking at some
magazine or manga or something, and being downright secretive about it,
too. Mousse had to have smuggled it in, and knowing the male mind as she
did, Shampoo could guess it was probably pornographic or something. Then
again, given the boys she ended up surrounded by, maybe it was a
magazine about martial arts or the "Top 10 Ways To Kill A Man With Your
Feet."

And if it was that kind of magazine... they had to know she would want
to read it too!

Shampoo shifted in her seat, trying to get a look at the cover.

"Shampoo!" Ranma's voice immediately retrieved her attention from its
desperate search for distraction. But then, to her disappointment, her
airen turned to address Mousse.

"Mousse," he added. "Put on your helmets. We want your input."

Shampoo let herself smile; even if Mousse had to tag along, it was nice
to be recognized and singled out for attention. Maybe the Commander
herself had asked for her! She quickly reached under her seat and picked
up her helmet. Without giving it a second thought, she toggled it out of
the "power saving" sleep mode and slipped it over her head. At first,
she'd disliked having the helmet in the way since she'd never trained
with anything like it before as an Amazon warrior, but she was starting
to really... appreciate it, and not just for the extra protection. It
was an important link between her and her friends and comrades in arms
(such as they were).

An XCOM trooper without it was truly alone against the hostile unknown.

She quickly switched the HUD to a communications-only mode, using
practiced eye movements and blinks. It didn't take long to upload the
encryption protocol and communications frequency from Ranma, and join
the conversation he was a part of. In the interests of clarity, it was
audio-only, though Shampoo knew teleconferences were common within the
UNETCO community.

"They're both here," she heard Ryouga say.

"Audio is fine," Mousse confirmed. "I'm good."

"I am also," Shampoo spoke up, feeling the sudden need to make herself
heard.

Commander Yasuda got right to the point, asking, "Do either of you two
recognize this voice?"

A second later, Shampoo heard a recording. The sound was rather poor, as
faint static threatened to drown out the rapid-fire Chinese that was
being spoken. It quickly became clear that it was a phone call, with the
first desperate sounding speaker trying to exchange words with a calmly
toned (somewhat bored sounding even) emergency operator. The latter kept
insisting on details, while the former seemed to be preoccupied running
and yelling about being under attack.

One phrase stuck out, though: "Amazon Women."

And the voice, Shampoo recognized it quickly as well.

"I... I think that's Lin Ke. Or maybe Pin Ke," she answered, not for the
first time glad that she could converse perfectly in English, instead of
embarrassing herself by muddling through insufferable Japanese. Pink and
Link were twins, old enemies of hers from a neighboring village called
Yaocaicun. They weren't great fighters, but instead practiced a rather
unique form of herbalism, horticulture and 'traditional' medicine. She
couldn't help but wonder just what this was all about. Were the Amazons
raiding the twins' village?

"See?" Ranma spoke up, with an audible huff. "I couldn't understand a
word of what she was sayin,' but I remembered that voice and how she
talked."

"Is this related to the attack?" Ryouga asked, posing the question for
any present to speculate on. "Would the Amazons attack nearby villages?"

Shampoo, for the first time in a long time, felt a bit of shame at what
she had to admit to regarding her people. As Outsiders, they wouldn't
understand, and would think less of the Amazons for their own ignorance.
But before she could frame the response... delicately and
diplomatically, Mousse blurted out a reply.

"They would," he said, sounding neither reproving nor approving. "The
Amazon Village exacts tribute from nearby towns in return for protection
from bandits and the like. The region is still pretty lawless and
corrupt, so to most, Amazon 'justice' is better than none at all."

"The Tribe protects weaker villages!" Shampoo tried to hastily correct
her male associate. The way he put, it sounded downright criminal.
"Amazons are warriors! We protect, and as a show of respect, other
villages shower us with gifts of appreciation. It is the honor of every
Amazon warrior to..."

"Then this could be an isolated incident," Commander Yasuda interrupted,
her tone of voice icy but totally professional.

"I doubt it, Commander," another voice, one Shampoo didn't recognize,
replied. She looked up at the comm. menu, and saw the name that was
highlighted, indicating who was speaking at the moment (or whose
microphone was active). It was someone with the last name 'Weissman.'

"At least three other emergency calls were made within twenty kilometers
of that one," the man continued. "Two were from cell phones, one from a
land line. Our data mining indicates a power failure occurred that
disconnected the landline at the same time the sole operational cell
phone call abruptly terminated. I do not believe this level of
electronic warfare can be attributed to overt operations by some...
martial arts villagers."

Again, Shampoo felt she had to rise to the defense of her people, though
ironically it was to confirm their possible actions. "Amazon Women are
not to be... Do not underestimate the women of the Amazon Tribe. We are
not a backward people. Do not assume that we wouldn't know, first, to
deprive an enemy of his senses. The first thing we would do is blind
him, and cut off his ability to cry for help."

"That's true," Mousse chimed in. "But while it wouldn't be hard to
destroy a generator or power lines, I don't know any Amazon Special
Techniques that could jam a cell phone call."

Shampoo bit back a retort, her microphone activating only to catch an
angry hiss.

"And there's nothing on radar?" Ranma asked.

"We are reliant on the rather un-impressive Chinese air defense network
in that region," Weissman answered the Special Lieutenant's question.
"But we haven't detected anything, and Hyperwave Detection isn't
possible that low to the ground and that far away."

"That doesn't prove... or disprove... anything," Ryouga grumbled.

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," Yasuda quoted.
"Though I think Carl Sagan would find the saying ironic in our case.
This could be a local flare up, or it could be a landing, or it could be
one of these 'Venom' bombs. Or it could be worse: a bombing followed up
by a landing."

"We'd be happy to check it out, either way," Ryouga volunteered. "Since
we are already in the air."

"Agreed," Ranma said with a hint of rivalry. "Juliet Squad's always up
for a fight. Plus, if it is just a buncha' Amazons, we might be able to
talk 'em down."

"Yes, we all know talk is your strong point," Mousse quipped, but
hastily added. "Sir."

"Weissman?" Yasuda prompted.

"The timing concerns me, Commander. It seems... suspicious. We should
have a keyhole over the area in twelve minutes."

His suspicious seemed to be shared with the Regional Commander. When she
spoke, it was obvious that she had made up her mind, and that she was
convinced that their alien friends had their invisible hand in this
particular cookie jar.

"Saotome. Hibiki," she said the two names with the sort of sharp bark
that came from years of command. "Continue on course and keep in
contact. I'll have backup ready to scramble if IMINT comes back with a
hostile picture of the area."

"Looks like we're talking a little detour after all," Ranma mirthfully
joked about their being sent into yet another (possible) combat
situation. "Shampoo. Mousse. You have ten minutes to fill us in on what
we could face and what approaches you would suggest if we face hostile
Amazons on touchdown."

"Yes, sir!" both echoed.

Which silently came as something of a surprise to Shampoo. For a moment
there, she hadn't even thought about what it would mean - for her
personally - to have to fight her own people. To conspire with others to
act in what could be counter to the interests and ways of the Amazon
Village. Yet at the same time, despite everything, she couldn't...
wouldn't... turn her back on Ranma, or anyone else in UNETCO or the two
squads, as annoying as they could sometimes be.

'The Elders wouldn't attack any of the other villages unless things had
gone terribly wrong. Had word about the loss of Cologne caused a schism?
Were the neighboring villages trying to break out from beneath the
Amazon's protective umbrella?' The village was too large, now, to
autonomously feed itself, and it had very little to actually trade with.
'If we land, will I really have to fight my own people? Can't we just
leave when it's clear that there aren't any aliens around?' Those
thoughts raced through her mind, along with one more.

One last terrible thought: 'What if that weapon... that weapon we were
sent to stop... what if it had already been used?'

What if there WAS no Amazon Village left when they landed?

She couldn't even imagine it. The Amazons had survived for three
thousand years! Their ancient ways were the right ways, the best ways,
that any human society had ever managed to craft for themselves. They
were strong. Stronger than Outsiders! They couldn't... just couldn't...
disappear in a single lonely night.

-----

Commander Zraz didn't like having Entertainment Modules on his ship.

Gliding past the Stimulation Chamber, he chanced a look inside, and saw
several of his own men enjoying themselves; lighter shapes among the
dark and swaying Chryssalids, all drinking in the sensation. Zraz didn't
like it. The Modules were a Sectoid indulgence, and they drove soldiers
from their posts and their weapons. Zraz himself had never used one of
the psionic machines, and if he died on this mission, he would not
regret his decision.

He had no problem with the Chryssalids using the Modules, of course,
since the alternative was to have them milling around unpacified or
causing trouble, but his soldiers would be better served by double
checking their gear or getting ready for any potential flare ups during
the mission window. He was tempted to have Engineering turn the damn
things off, or to prohibit their use by non-Chryssalids during the
mission, but he had been in Command long enough to know better. The
Modules were good for the morale of his men and helped to relieve
tension between those who were not members of the same Hatching.

He continued on his way, trying to get a feel for the crew compliment of
the vessel. He saw one of the Sectoids they had on board; the creature
shuffled past without any outward show of respect or emotion, and Zraz
could see his reflection in its glossy black eyes. He had felt a small
mental nudge, though, which served as the Sectoid's common means of
interaction with non-psionic species. Truth be told, it was not
comforting, and it left Zraz feeling momentarily numb and cold.

Sectoids, in his opinion, were far worse than Ethereals in that respect.
The little clones had some kind of hive mind beyond The Mind that guided
them all from its cradle in Cydonia. They also smelt bad, like their
meat was rotten from the inside out. He also couldn't shake that
silently condescending nature they had towards any race that wasn't psi-
capable. The little medic Sectoid would have done well to remember that,
within the greater hierarchy, this battleship was Zraz's to command.

Rising up the central lift, he slithered slowly towards the Command
Center, tucked safely within the most heavily protected section of the
ship. Usually, only a navigator and an overseer needed to be left to
guide the ship, but this time all the high ranked officers were gathered
and in attendance. The ship was more crowded than standard procedure
dictated, and there were five leaders present rather than the normal
three.

Alien Battleships, like the one Zraz enjoyed command of, were extremely
versatile vessels, second only to Large Scouts, and only then because
(at least until recently) there was usually little need to project so
much force at a single time. Standard full compliment for a Battleship
was twelve soldiers, two navigators (a primary and a 'threat observer'
or gunner), two engineers, two medics, three leaders, the commander, and
at least six terrorist units. The maximum a Battleship could carry,
however, was more than three times that.

Only once, to Zraz's knowledge, had a Battleship ever needed to carry a
'maximum compliment.' It had been for an assault on one of the human
bases, using a Muton crew. He did not need to imagine what the assault
had been like. The Mind Knew. The Mind had seen it all, and through The
Mind, Zraz had seen and experienced it himself: the slaughter, the
massacre, the terror in the eyes of the defeated as they fired with
their tiny personal weapons, knowing it was futile. Mutons were good at
that sort of thing.

Zraz did not envy the price they paid, however. No: not at all.

As the metal door to the room flowed back into place, sealing and
becoming part of the wall, a tall titian form loomed in the back of the
room, facing one of the flickering displays that were part of that same
dynamic surface. Zraz paused; so long as that one was in attendance, he
was Commander in name only. Ethereals were in a hierarchy all their own,
closer to The Mind than he would or could ever be. There were no medics
or engineers or navigators among the Ethereal race - only soldiers,
leaders and commanders.

As the Ethereal Leader turned, Zraz could see a dark ragged pattern that
ran down the side of its face. Part of the skin around the jaw on that
side seemed to have dried and drawn back; leaving a permanent sneer over
craggy mismatched teeth. This was one of Hollow Eyes' subordinates, here
to supervise the Sectoids and one of their 'pet projects.' Sneer's mind
erupted without warning, seizing the thoughts of all present, sparing
only the busy navigator from its uncompromising command.

SPEAK

The mental oppression ebbed, just a little, receding enough to allow a
measure of independence. Zraz hissed out the low pitched Snakeman
equivalent of a sigh. He had worked under and Ethereals and known the
power of their psionics since he had torn his way free from his leathery
egg. There was something both terrifying and comforting about their
undeniable power.

"What is the status of our stealth?" Zraz began, and all five of the
Snakeman Leaders present turned to the dynamic display systems that
floated in midair or just above the surface of the wall. They were all
from the same Nesting Company, and all but two from the same creche. One
was from Zraz's own brood. They were Kin, and he was glad to have them
by his side, especially against the humans. Years ago, they had been
somewhat contemptible creatures, but their "XCOM" organization had
changed that view among many Snakemen. It wasn't just their use of alien
technology, but their growing psionic powers, that demanded respect.

"We have not been spotted," Zrell responded, sounding pleased. Like most
Snakemen, he valued guile and cunning. Zraz had many spawn, but only
Zrell and Zren had risen to the rank of Leader. Zren had died a short
time ago, which was a shame, as he had shown much promise and could have
risen to Commander some day. Commanders were entitled to spawn twenty
percent of a Nesting Company creche, whereas Leaders were only given a
paltry five percent.

"Their local detection systems are primitive and easily fooled," another
Leader, Crax, released a long low growl. "The natives are isolated. We
may have as much as one fifth of a revolution of this world before we
are disturbed."

"That would be well," another added, leaving unsaid, 'If it remains
true.'

The human XCOM organization had craftily developed a means of
intercepting alien communications through the use of a hugely scaled up
Mind Probe, larger and more powerful than even the ship-mounted ones
used in Battleships. Once they detected a possible UFO, they scanned it
(or even just the area), reading the surface thoughts of any life forms
in the area. Even ships 'running silent' and not communicating actively
with alien bases or Commanders were vulnerable to interception. The only
defense was to not be detected in the first place.

Speaking of which...

"What does the land below resemble?" Xatix, another old Snakeman who had
never progressed beyond the rank of Leader, had asked the question. He
followed up with the more important: "What resistance will we face?"

The relevant information appeared overhead, queued by the Battleship's
Threat Observer. The ship mounted Mind Probe quickly scanned and
processed the stray thoughts of those many miles away. Their low
approach vector didn't give as thorough a look at what was going on as a
high altitude approach would have, but it was sufficient to get numbers
and perspective.

"I have never seen to many chrysali in one place," Zrell spoke with
clear amazement. They were not true chrysali, actually, as the human
hosts below had no Chryssalids growing within them. The Snakeman tongue
had no word for that condition, however.

"We must not be careless," Zraz said, checking the displays. "Our
control of these chrysali will be limited. Let our terror units do their
work while we do ours and quickly depart..."

Ideally, the strike would be lightning fast.

Zraz knew it almost certainly wouldn't actually turn out that way. They
had many objectives to see to on the ground, and unlike those who
underestimated the human special organization that so plagued their on-
world operations, Zraz knew better. The native humans were so much swamp
scum - annoying but easily swept aside. The real threat was likely
already flying in their direction.

The ship landed just as the meeting wrapped up. An alien Battleship had
an in-atmosphere cruise speed over seven times the speed of sound, and
the nature of the inertia-less drive meant that it only had to slow down
at the last moment before landing. There was something to be said for
speed as a defense as well as stealth, and it never took very long to
get where they were going. The ship was slightly stealthier when moving
at slower speeds, but they had already started out close to their
objective location.

Hiding a ship in a lake or other body of water was an old trick, even
among Star Spawn, and it remained an effective tactic. This leg of the
trip was the last quick dash, after hearing news of the confirmed attack
launched by the human pawns of the Ethereals. Zraz was wary, but he had
a good feeling about this mission. Everything was going as planned, and
they had come over-prepared.

He favored Zrell with a fierce gaze - a sign of respect. It would be a
shame to lose another spawn after it had risen to the rank of Leader.
Zrell returned the gesture and then slithered away to meet with his
soldiers. Zraz, meanwhile, visited the upper armory and retrieved the
same Blaster Launcher he had always used, along with a standard medium
plasma rifle and two handfuls of grenades. If things went ideally, he
would go the entire mission without using any of them.

And if things did not go ideally...

Zraz examined the perfectly smooth surface of the Blaster Bomb in his
hands, seeing his face reflected in the curved alien alloy. Death was in
his hands - guided, certain Death. It was a force he would not hesitate
to unleash, but at the same time, he wondered... whether a human in
powered armor, heading towards them, was thinking the same thing at that
very moment?

'The Mind guides us; watches with us; watches through us,' Zraz thought,
tiny slitted eyes shining in the darkness of the alien Battleship. 'So
we will see.'

-----

Akane ran at a brisk pace, not for the first time surprised by the
physical capabilities of her team mates. None of them could keep pace
with her if she went all out, but they were leaps and bounds above
anyone she had ever met who wasn't already a martial artist in Ranma's
league. She still wasn't totally used to keeping in step with others as
she ran, despite their own impressive abilities, and she had to
continually reign in the impulse to think of it as a contest and rush
ahead.

Plus, who was she kidding?

She was excited.

They were already on their way back to base when they had been contacted
by Command and notified of Seiran's change of status from Code Two
(which roughly indicated that a mission was in active progress) to Code
Three (which roughly indicated that mission planning was in progress).
They had dispensation to continue their training during a Code Two
alert, but a Code Three always meant a report to duty stations.

Action!

There was a chance she would be sent into action!

-----

The Skyranger's engines roared as it approached the LZ or Landing Zone.
It did not touch down smoothly; blasting away debris and wet chunks of
grass and earth. The sky rumbled in the distance, filling the early
morning with the promise of a downpour. A dark and unwelcoming
atmosphere descended with it encouraging the wise to retreat indoors
with a warm blanket and a good book.

The back of the Skyranger lowered, hydraulics hissing, planting itself
firmly into the ground. Mousse and Konatsu were the first two out of the
ship, the steady and almost imperceptible pitter patter of droplets
falling onto his stealth suit providing a strange sense of detachment
from the world outside. He had been cured of his Jyusenkyou curse for
some time now, but rain had always been an old mental catalyst, and
continued to trigger a somewhat atavistic response in him.

He never wanted to change again, not like that.

Mousse briefly looked upwards, letting a few drops splatter against his
suit's optics, blurring them slightly. They were coated to repel fluids,
including water, and mere surface tension would not be enough to obscure
his vision. Lowering his head, the water slouched off, and he took
another few steps away from the landed Skyranger. The softened ground
beneath his feet pooled under his weight and curled around the lip of
his boot. It was the dark brown muck it had always been - easily flooded
in springtime, ruining roads and carefully arranged plots of land.

'This isn't my home. This hasn't been my home in a long, long time,' he
thought with undisguised bitterness. 'Shampoo would never leave it,
though, would she?'

Behind him, the rest of the two squads filed out of the transport and
started making a ground's eye appraisal of the area. It was mountainous
country, but open as well, with un-forested valleys dominated by shrub
land, bamboo fields and rice patties. The Skyranger had landed just
outside the village of Yaocaicun, but rather than draw out excited,
curious or skittish villagers, the response was... nothing.

"Looks like this place's seen better days," Ranma stated the obvious.

Yaocaicun undoubtedly had seen better days. There were damaged buildings
that they hadn't been able to identify on their first observation pass
over the area. Visibility had not been very good, unfortunately. Mousse
had personally been through Yaocaicun a few times before, mostly to
learn about the varied poisons the town was famous for. It was a village
of terraces, built in a typically hap hazard rural fashion, sprawling
along two main roads that met up in the center of town. There were no
walls or towers, but the houses themselves were quite large by rural
Chinese standards.

"Looks like Susan's finished her run and entered a holding pattern,"
Ranma said, prompting everyone to give at least a cursory glance towards
their 'minimap' HUD feature. The aerial drone had compiled a rather
detailed map of the area after being detached from its berth on the
Skyranger, and the extent of the town's damage became clearer. Infrared
showed some of the buildings were still smoldering from being set on
fire, and other blobs had been identified by the computer as 'likely'
biological intercepts. Most of those were among the ruins on the far
side of the town.

"What's that north-northeast?" Ukyou asked, also looking at the map.

Mousse had been about to ask the same thing, but then he already
suspected what it was. Shampoo or Ranma would know for sure, so he opted
to wait and see if they confirmed what he had already thought.

"A poison glade," Shampoo answered her spatula wielding rival. "Mostly
destroyed."

"Probably the twins. Looks sorta like they formed it just outside of
town..." Ranma paused as he considered the options. "And look at the
infrared. There could be a couple'a survivors hidin' in there."

"You go ahead then," Ryouga spoke up. Mousse turned in his direction,
and it didn't take a genius to guess what India Squad's leader was about
to suggest.

"We'll clean out the village," he finished, sounding unruffled by the
task. Shouldering his weapon, the lost one called to his comrades,
"Mousse, you're on point. Ryu, Kuno, form up behind me."

Ranma didn't put up an argument regarding which team would do what.
Mousse knew Saotome, and knew that even now he would avoid the dirtier
work if given the opportunity. Plus, Juliet Squad was better equipped to
deal with survivors and get them to safety. India Squad's chief virtue
and specialty was that it could and would destroy anything in their
path. There was little room there for kid gloves and frightened
civilians.

"Let's move out!" Ryouga barked, and they headed off towards the town,
ready to sweep it clean. Mousse spared Juliet Squad and the now closed-
up rear of the Skyranger with mixed feelings. Intel had confirmed the
presence of a landed UFO, an alien Battleship no less, about three miles
to the south outside the Amazon village. A part of him wished that they
were landing near there, but Command wanted them to contain and
investigate the area before reinforcements arrived to frontally assault
the ship.

Mousse's eyes swept down to his shouldered rifle. It was just a regular
MSG90X1, not even a laser rifle. The Skyranger had not come with any
extra weapons except for the cache of emergency T-6Bs, since its mission
had been to just pick them up. Those laser pistols, second generation
models, had been divided up by the two squads. No doubt the lack of
firepower (Shampoo's heavy laser aside) was one of the primary reasons
Command wanted them on the periphery of the coming battle.

That... and they had been up all night fighting.

"I've got something on PAWS," Mousse warned, taking professional note of
the movement registering on his rifle-mounted scanner. They had just set
foot on the main road leading into Yaocaicun, on the outskirts of the
village. There was a lot of movement around them; a lot of debris in the
air, being tossed aside by the wind and battered down by the rain. The
Platoon Advance Warning System was a sophisticated piece of machinery,
thankfully, and it had been set to only alert them to movement above a
certain size. All four members of India Squad, strung out in an open,
staggered Z formation, zeroed in on the source of the moment as it came
out from behind one of the houses.

It was immediately recognizable, in shape at least, as human.

It wore human clothes and had a human form, but the skin that could be
seen was knotted and brownish. It shuffled around the side of the
building, and as it did so a rag doll in its right hand was being
dragged through the mud. It took a second or two to realize, to take in,
the realization that the 'doll' it had been dragging around was the
broken body of a child. The infected woman looked at the four soldiers
with wild blood-shot eyes.

"By the..." Kuno started to whisper.

"You all know our ROE," Ryouga cut the kendoist off. "Identify and
Execute."

In other words: 'destroy anything that appears to be under alien
influence.'

Two shots rang out; sharp, loud barks, coughing twin 6.7 millimeter
custom rounds, designed specifically for the XCOM MSG90X1 sniper rifle.
The infected Amazon took both to the chest, sending it to the ground
without as much as a grunt. Ryu and Kuno slowly lowered their weapons,
fat raindrops dribbling down the sides of their rifles.

They advanced slowly, and only a few seconds later, the zombified Amazon
pulled itself back up and onto its feet. The gaping bloody wound in its
chest didn't seem to even cause it pain, though at least it had the
courtesy to bleed. Before it could do anything else, a bullet sheared
the top of its head off in a fountain of crimson and dark orange.

"Headshots if you can," Ryouga said, voice held firmly in monotone.
"Conserve ammo."

As they advanced into the ruined village, they found another infected
Amazon beating a dead body, hitting it over and over, long after it had
ceased to be recognizable as male or female. It turned and hissed at
them, beautiful female features contorted in the madness of a chemically
induced haze. Mousse personally put a bullet between her eyes and
considered it the most merciful act he had committed in recent memory.

They cleared out two houses, finding no one alive.

It was an unnerving experience, as two men took watch and two stormed
inside. There was slightly more early-morning light here in the town
than there had been at sea aboard the Procyon, but the nature of the
place seemed entirely more eerie. His body and mind seemed to want to
crawl into a detached routine: stand, advance, shoot, stand, advance,
shoot. Around the time they finished checking out the fourth house, he
heard over the group comm. that Ranma's group had encountered some
resistance.

"Dogs," Ranma had explained, between punctuated bursts of gunfire. "A
bunch of 'em... just came at us out of the blue."

"Wild?" Ryouga had asked, calmly.

The other squad leader paused a moment before replying, with certainty,
"Infected."

Mousse's motion sensor screamed.

"Incoming!" he shouted the warning, turning just as two Amazons raced
out from inside a building and down the street. Desperately, he wanted
to see them with their hands up, in the universal posture of surrender,
or at least giving some form of greeting. Their clothes - slipshod armor
thrown over what had to be nightclothes - were stained by blood, and
both brandished large muscle swords. They were fast, even for Amazons,
running as fast as forty kilometers per hour, and clearly a team.

Mousse hesitated; surely infected humans wouldn't be working
cooperatively...

The first stumbled forward and fell, the top half of its head missing.
The other got a full twenty feet before a shot to the neck filled the
air with blood. Mousse turned on his commanding officer, shocked, when
he heard a guttural snarl from the woman. She was still walking towards
them, even with the awful neck wound. No living thing could stand
upright; even continue to shamble forward, with a gaping wound where its
jugular used to be. This close, he could see her skin was only slightly
off-color.

Another shot, and it was over.

Mousse turned to the Ryouga; he had to ask. "How? How did you know?"

Ryouga's face, shrouded behind the visor and helmet of his stealth suit,
was unreadable. He gestured to Ryu and Kuno, who had just finished
checking the house nearby.

"My instincts told me..." the lost one explained, simply.

"Mayhap we would be wisest to simply destroy this entire cursed place,"
Kuno remarked, following behind Ryu as they headed to the next building.
Mousse wouldn't say so, but he was starting to feel the same way.

"That isn't why we're here," Ryouga replied, shaking his head. "We have
to hope that someone is alive and praying for help. Our two squads... we
didn't fly out here to kill people; we came to save them. Even if
there's only one out of a whole village, we came here to save them."

Mousse stared at the lost boy, a little surprised by his words. That was
technically why they were here, but he hadn't thought Ryouga would take
the mission to heart like it sounded he did. Maybe it was just that, in
as much a he advocated hunting down the enemy and annihilating him, the
leader of India Squad still wanted some more noble purpose to follow.
Maybe he wanted to think he was saving someone against all odds because
he couldn't save Akari? Or maybe he just wanted to say the sort of thing
Command would approve of.

Regardless, three doors later and there was still nothing to show for
it.

Ryu and Kuno had just exited, shaking their heads, when Juliet Squad
radioed in a warning. Konatsu, scouting ahead of his group using his
multi-body technique, had detected a very large amount of movement
headed in their direction. India Squad quickly dispersed and took up
firing positions behind cover.

Two minutes passed, but nothing came into sight.

"We're being watched," Ryu broke the uneasy silence. "I can feel it."

"You are merely nervous," Kuno chortled confidently. "Fear not! Take
heart in the blade of Tatewaki Kuno, your generous, humble and stalwart
comrade in arms!"

"Humble, yeah r..."

"The ground," Ryouga suddenly said, as if realizing something. "Is
this...?"

Mousse felt it, then - the ground had begun to sink and pull him down.
It was as if a sinkhole was opening itself under his feet. Any normal
man would have been dragged under before he even realized it, but Mousse
was no ordinary man. His left foot found a tiny purchase in the
crumbling, slippery earth, and it was enough for him to jump. He turned
as he angled towards one of the thatched roofs nearby, and he could see
Ryu doing the same. Kuno, being slower and with a less well developed
sakkijutsu, was almost halfway under. Only the use of his sword and
rifle as anchors kept him from being pulled down completely.

Ryouga was gone.

Acting almost without thinking, Mousse snared Kuno with a line of
weighted chain and started to drag him out. It was harder than he had
expected; there was some force pulling the kendoist down even as he
struggled. Then Ryu cursed, and Mousse could hear him firing. Turning
away from Kuno, just for a moment, Mousse saw the problem: a whole damn
swarm of armed and armored Amazons were charging towards them. At the
speed the faster ones were capable of, they'd almost be in melee range
in less than ten or fifteen seconds. Cursing loudly, he finally pulled
Kuno free and the swordsman landed on his feet on the same roof, just a
few feet away.

"There a problem over there?" Ranma yelled over the comm., hearing every
word they said.

"We'll handle it," Mousse spoke for the squad, and faced the oncoming
Amazons he had been taught for half his life to serve and respect above
all others. Heaven help him, but he recognized some of the faces in that
crowd. He heard Ryu curse again as his MSG90 finally ran out of ammo.

The Hidden Weapons Master snapped his rifle over his shoulder with a
smooth motion and tucked his hands into his sleeves. It was raining
hard, now, the thunder and lightning of the storm growing ever closer.
Widening his stance, he withdrew his hands, now sporting a black and
silver gauntlet over each one. Mounted into the back of the hand, on
each gauntlet, were a pair of protruding exotic alloy tubes.

"Kuro Hakuchouken," he whispered, meeting the fray headlong. "Fist of
the Black Swan!"

-----

Ranma tried not to dwell on the battle unfolding on the other side of
the village. Ryouga had volunteered to be the spear point of their
little side trip and soak up the enemy's attention, and as much at is
annoyed him to admit it, Ranma knew India Squad was better suited for it
than his own fire team. Besides, he had the feeling his group was in for
a fight of their own before this was anywhere near over.

"There is a lot of fire damage," Shampoo observed as they carefully
walked around a burned down farmhouse. "This building burned down very
fast. Very hot."

"Incendiaries?" Ukyou asked. She and Konatsu were scouting ahead and
away from the town, watching for an ambush.

"No," Shampoo answered, kneeling down next to a charred looking brick.
"Amazon Tribe does not use anything like that. This was one of the
Dragon Breath techniques."

"Techniques?" Ranma asked, stressing the plural. In his ear, he could
still hear India Squad fighting, but as Squad Leader he had ordered the
rest of his squad out of that comm. frequency. It would only be a
distraction at the moment. This talk about techniques had piqued his
natural curiosity however. He couldn't recall any fire-creating Amazon
techniques.

"Like Saffron," Shampoo clarified, looking around before continuing on
their way. "Convert ki into fire."

"Pyrokinetics," Konatsu supplied the technical term.

"How many Amazons know this technique?" Ranma asked, secretly hoping he
would get the chance to see it in action, even if it was dangerous. He'd
been experimenting with elemental based ki conversion for some time, but
he was always at his best when he could observe a technique and then
copy and customize it. There were some, like a certain lost boy, who
thought of this as stealing techniques, but they were just jealous and
looking at it the wrong way. It was just a little training short cut,
and who didn't like to save time if it could be helped?

"...Two, I think," Shampoo replied. "Maybe three. The most powerful is
Elder Sin Ku. She is very strong; she has a lot of ki. What I no
understand..." she quickly corrected herself. "What I do not understand
is why anyone would attack this place. Why not stay in the village?"

"If I had to guess," Ranma did just that. "I'd say they were chasing
those who survived the attack on the Amazon village. Either that, or the
aliens are controlling them remotely."

"That would be most unfortunate for us, Saotome-taichou," Konatsu
sounded like that last option was the worst thing he had heard all day.
"We are not well armed enough to take on alien troops, especially if
they are expecting us."

"We'll cross that river when and if we come to it," Ranma assured him.
"Let's just stay focused."

Finally, they could clearly see the ruined tangle of vines that had been
Pink and Link's preferred battleground. It was smaller than the one
Ranma remembered fighting in back when they had visited Nerima, and
large swaths of it were laid to waste. The fire damage was obvious,
though the recent rainfall had left about half of it intact. Prickly
vines as thick as trees remained, twisting and coiling around each other
in a poisonous labyrinth. Many of the flower heads, however, had been
cut or torn away.

"Motion!" Ukyou warned. As they got closer, sure enough, he could see
one of the infected Amazons trapped among several massive creeper vines.
They were wrapped around her like snakes, and their wicked hooked spines
were impaling her from a dozen angles. For a moment, she looked alive.

Then, even closer, they could see the mottled flesh and the glazed eyes.

"I know this one," Shampoo answered the question before he had the
chance to ask. She sounded pained, but no where near grief stricken. She
approached the infected girl, unafraid of the thrashing form.

"Mei Ru," Shampoo said coldly, looking the girl in the eyes.

Without warning, she struck with one of her combat knives. It was a
surprisingly clean cut, perhaps due to the blood the body had already
lost. Shampoo reached out and caught the head before it could fall to
the ground, cradling it carefully and with as much respect as she could
manage, despite the grizzly situation. Gently resting the head on the
ground and closing the eyes, Shampoo slowly shook her head.

The rest of Juliet Squad stood by, unsure what to say.

"Shampoo..." Ranma said, after a few moments.

The Chinese Amazon nodded. "We find those who did this... we find them
and kill them..." She looked back at him, and he could imagine the hard
and desperate look on her face. "Right? Lieutenant?"

Ranma frowned behind his helmet.

"Yeah," he replied, knowing it was what she needed to hear, and how he
would feel in her place. Like Ryouga, he suspected. "And we'll save
those we can. That, too, Shampoo."

She stared at him for a long second, soaking that part in, and perhaps
feeling a little bad that she had forgotten all about it. Then she
nodded, and they headed deeper into the forest of vines. If there was
anyone alive in there, anyone they could save instead of just put out of
their misery, Juliet Squad would find them.

-----

These sure as Hell weren't like the zombies in the movies.

For that matter, they weren't like the ones they'd been told about in
the training videos. Chryssalid victims were described as animalistic
and savage, without higher reasoning, and most importantly: unable to
operate cooperatively. Maybe it was because these ones didn't have an
alien parasite growing inside them; maybe it was because they were all
Amazons and martial artists of the highest caliber. Mousse didn't know,
couldn't speculate - all he could do was fight.

His foot skated along the ground, disrupting the horse stance of the
crazed woman warrior in front of him. She had been a brutish hulk of a
human being before getting a lethal dose of the alien toxin called
Venom; now she was a true monster. Most Amazons were not the beautiful
feminine ideal like Shampoo - far from it. Given the scars on this
little lady's face, Mousse could guess why she was giving him so much
more trouble than the others.

'Breaking point training,' he could see it in the way she moved, if not
the way she looked. Luckily, she was a relative novice, but the training
itself had made her tough. It was a damn good thing he had come prepared
with his Fist of the Black Swan.

With her stance broken and her defense open, he crouched and shot his
fist up and into her gut. The impact alone would have normally broken a
quarter of the ribs on a human being, the shockwave stunning the heart
and killing the victim within seconds. Mousse was no Ryu or Ryouga, but
he was without exaggeration one of the most physically powerful people
on the planet. The pressure of the blow also triggered the stress-
sensitive switch within the palm of his gauntlet.

With a thunderous roar, his fist became momentarily engulfed in flash
and flame.

"What size round did ya want?" Hans Fischbach, Senior Fabrication
Technician - Seiran Mountain Division, had asked just that back when
Mousse had asked for his help designing the Fist of the Black Swan.
Mousse had repeated himself. The man's response: a curt, "Damn, son! You
crazy or something?" spoke for itself.

The Fist was designed to punch through the nearly invincible organic
armor of a Muton. The Breaking Point heartened hide of the Amazon now on
the receiving end of it wasn't close to a match. A four gauge, 23mm
"Barrikada" cartridge had just been fired directly into her torso with
enough force to crumple a car engine from a hundred meters away. Venom-
hardened skin tore like wet tissue paper under the combined assault;
super hard bone splintered; and a wave of blood erupted like a geyser
from her back.

But he wasn't done yet.

It would already have been overkill for any human opponent, but he had
quickly learned that a Venom infected individual could survive simply
insane amounts of trauma. Compared to a baseline human, a Chryssalid-
infected host could survive several times as much physical damage and
remain mobile, they could not be subdued or stunned by psionic, chemical
or electrical means. Armor piercing weaponry, lasers, even plasma, all
were measurably less effective. Aside from headshots, only incendiaries
or overkill could do the job.

Standing, he swept aside the arm he had just struck with, pivoted and
struck with a quick uppercut using his left hand. Unlike the mounting on
his right arm, which held round after round of solid 23mm slugs, his
left made good use of the Russian KS-23's "Shrapnel-25" buckshot rounds.
The infected Amazon's pug-like face simply disappeared, gibed beyond
recognition or recovery.

Mousse spun, an axe kick catching another infected Amazon across the
face as she moved in with dual curved swords. She was a Master with
them, and had no doubt practiced with the blades from the moment she
could walk. Behind him, another Amazon wielded a massive pudao, and he
didn't doubt that she had the skill and strength to split a man in two
with it if she got the chance. They were working together, but he was
still their better.

Ducking, dodging, and then blocking the first one's swords, he stabbed
her with his elbow before pulling it across her chest. It caught for a
half second, and then he was through - a long wickedly curved scythe
arching out from where it was attached over his elbow. A tiny motion of
his wrist retracted it again back into its hiding place, even as he
landed a quick left jab to the junction of the woman's chest and right
arm. This one had no Breaking Point training, not even Iron Body
training, and the 4-gauge buckshot took her arm clean off, along with
most of her face and upper body.

The woman with the poleaxe simply knocked aside the still standing body
of her dead comrade and lunged at him. He allowed her two lunges before,
seeing her drawing the weapon back, he struck. While dodging, he had
started to wrap the head of her weapon with the trailing cloth of his
robe. Normal fabric would have been ripped away under the Amazon's brute
strength, but his robes would not tear so easily. A weave of exotic
alloy fibers within the cloth gave it tensile strength great enough to
make layered spider silk seem like rice paper by comparison.

He pulled sharply and the Amazon's weapon tore from her hands, ripping
the insides of her palms. A slug to the center of her exposed chest put
a hole in her large enough to watch TV through. It wasn't a head shot,
but it severed the spinal cord, and that was good enough. He kicked the
body away and tucked his hands into his sleeves. With deft fingers he
reloaded the gauntlets that extended all down his arms and with a
satisfying 'cha-chunk!' the four talons of the Kuro Hakuchouken were
back in place and ready to strike.

He looked around, checking the status of the others. Kuno was on the
defensive, back on the roof, sword flashing as he cut through the rain.
There were three Amazons surrounding him, all looking wounded and all
wielding sliced up weapons. Ryu, at Mousse's other side, was a blur of
strikes and slashing spins. His hands may as well have been blades
themselves, as he carved opponents apart with his Dokuja Tanketsu Sho
and Geimon Tetsu Sen Shi techniques. The only unknown was their squad
leader.

Mousse wondered if he was dead, or just lost.

The ground beneath his feet cracked, and instinctively Mousse jumped
away. His gut feeling had been prophetic; only a second later, the
ground cracked apart like the surface of a broken mirror, and exploded
upwards. Two nearby buildings along either side of the road were
leveled, one by the explosion itself, another by the shockwave rippling
through the ground. One of those happened to be the building Kuno had
been dueling on.

Bouncing off the ground and vaulting through the air, Mousse headed
towards the rubble to check on his team mate. As he did, he saw two
figures standing in the center of the crater in the middle of the
street. He recognized both, and when he did, he realized who had been
watching them before, and who had called down the horde they were
currently chipping away at.

'Elder Pi Lu? Shit!' he cursed, in no way eager to get involved in that
fight.

Compared to Ryouga, Pi Lu was a frail husk of a human being. She wasn't
the shrunken troll Cologne had been, but the lost boy still easily
towered over her. Pi Lu wore no normal armor or ornamentation, keeping
her long white hair up in an unremarkable ponytail, and wearing a loose
(very outsider Chinese and male, in Mousse's opinion) shirt and pants.
Running down her arms and legs, however, were what appeared to be
bracers of solid iron and stone.

"Ryouga!" he quickly spoke, remembering Pi Lu couldn't possibly hear him
over the squad comm. "You ok?"

"She knows the Breaking Point," Ryouga replied, starting to circle the
Amazon Elder. She did the same, craggy fingers flexing and unflexing.

Mousse landed in the ruins of the home, found Kuno's hand sticking out
of a pile of rubble, and helped the kendoist up. He was wary of another
attack, but couldn't pull his primary attention from the confrontation
in the center of the street.

"That's Elder Pi Lu," he said, and wondered briefly how best to get
across the kind of opponent Ryouga was facing. "She's one of Khu Lon's
old rivals on the Council."

For a moment, the lost boy said nothing.

Then: "One of Granny's friends' huh?"

"Of the five elements which the Amazons train in, Pi Lu is known for
what we would call terrakinetics," Mousse quickly added. "I doubt she'll
use anything else."

Ryouga muttered something unintelligible, but followed up by noting,
"Clear out the rest and snipe her if I haven't won by then."

"You sure?" Mousse asked. It wasn't like Ranma or Ryouga to willingly
cut short or 'cheat' a duel, especially against a strong opponent.

"I'd rather complete our mission than draw out a duel," he replied, with
a snort. "We're not here to prove ourselves. We're here to win and go
home."

Mousse mentally went over the weapons he had on him. It wasn't
honorable, and it wasn't noble, but it was doable... once the crowds
thinned a bit and there was less chance of getting mobbed. Kuno's sword
cut through the air, intercepting a barrage of throwing knives behind
him. Tearing his eyes away from the confrontation, Mousse went back to
his grim work. But with how many women warriors there seemed to be
around and infected, he was starting to wonder if there were would be
any Amazons beyond himself and Shampoo come morning.

And just where were all the Amazon men?

-----

Closer to the source of the clustered infrared radiation Susan had
detected, it started to become clear to Ranma just what had transpired.
Amid the twisted glade of poison creepers and barbed vines Juliet Squad
encountered both broken bodies, inevitably those of the townspeople, and
the occasionally lost or incapacitated forms of infected Amazons. Just
like he remembered from his own fight against Pink and Link, the air was
thick to choking with hostile spores and aggressive toxins, but while
these would have formed normally effective defenses against angry
warrior women with no NBC or Hazmat gear, they seemed totally
ineffective against those already suffering under the effects of the
Chryssalid Venom.

The infected humans simply stumbled or ran right through gusts of poison
that made their skin burn and eyes blind. They didn't feel irritation,
inflammation, panic or pain. Some were bleeding from the nose and mouth;
a sure sign that poisons had gotten into their lungs and done terrible
damage. Inevitably, upon sensing or stumbling upon the four members of
Juliet Squad, they would screech and attack. One had a rifle, to Ranma's
surprise, and she had almost been able to get off a shot before Konatsu
had beaten her to the trigger.

Another menace came in the form of constrictor vines laced with stinging
thorns that formed a tangled mat underfoot. They were tough and strong,
and somehow tried to wind around anything that dared try and trample
them. Many infected Amazons showed damage around their feet from tearing
themselves free, and a few others had been completely engulfed, like a
small tree becoming smothered and entombed by ivy. It was this macabre
feature above all others that filled Ranma with an apprehension he
hadn't known during his battle through the glade in Nerima.

But they were getting closer.

He checked his rifle and noted that he was down to his last three
rounds. Shouldering it and locking it into place against his back, he
reluctantly retrieved his T6B ALUS or 'Advanced Laser Sidearm.' Lasers
lost some effectiveness in the rain, so he also had a US SOCOM at his
other hip, just in case. Leading the group, he stepped over a still
twitching corpse covered in mandragora roots. Ranma remembered his own
experience with the paralyzing roots, but this particular victim of them
had been up and about when she'd tried to attack Juliet Squad.

If even the mandragora had proven ineffective, then it was clear that
Pink and Link's offensive poisons had been completely useless when their
village had been attacked. The question now was how many villagers had
they been able to herd through the poison glade in their effort to buy
time? As Juliet Squad came to a large, solid wall of twisted wood and
bamboo, Ranma allowed himself to hope that it was a good number: maybe
fifty or even a hundred.

"Looks pretty solid," Ukyou commented, walking up to the surface and
rapping the back of her hand against it. "Feels solid, too."

"I'll look for a way over. One moment, please." Konatsu turned around,
and jumped. Ranma would have done it himself, but Konatsu was just as
nimble as he was when it came to moving around quickly, and in seconds
he had scrambled up the surface of a gnarled tree, part large blooming
poison flowers. After that, he vanished behind a screen of creeper
leaves.

The rest of the squad waited below, backs to each other and weapons
trained on any possible avenues of attack. The place was creepy, off
upping to say the least, and they were all visibly on edge. Even when
assaulting a UFO, at least the terrain itself wasn't actively trying to
kill you. A rustle amid a cluster of thick leaves instantly drew his
attention and his aim... but a closer examination revealed a long
hairless tail.

'Just a rat, then?' Ranma lowered his aim a fraction, as the tail slowly
disappeared into the leaves. A second later a bulbous plant head, like
that of a giant Venus fly trap, also emerged, the last inch of the tail
hanging out the side of its mouth.

"Saotome-taichou!" Konatsu radioed in, "It seems to be entirely sealed.
There is no way in from above."

"Alright," Ranma said, turning away from the carnivorous plant and
motioning to Ukyou. "We're breaching it then. Ukyou. M112."

"Gotcha!" Ukyou replied and took a few steps back, past where he stood.
When it was clear that her six was being covered, she put away her rifle
and fished out a small explosive charge from one of the sealed pockets
on her stealth suit's combat vest. Taking a look at the wall, she
quickly molded the M112's composition C4 into a half semi-circle large
enough to step through without hunching. She only had a little over a
pound's worth of explosive to use, so she wasn't surprised to hear
Konatsu dropping down from above (with a warning that he was about to do
so) just before she finished.

"Set!" She announced, and backed away from the wall, holding the M112's
Command Detonator. "Three, Two, One!"

The C4 explosive burned hotly for an instant, projecting an unseen jet
of fire into the strange wall. Whatever wood or bizarre plant matter it
was constructed of proved incapable of resisting the charge, and when
Ranma approached and landed a solid side kick to the center of the semi-
circle, the whole thing fell back and in, like a hole being punched in a
pumpkin.

Ranma motioned for them Ukyou and Konatsu to stand guard while he and
Shampoo went in. Inside was dark save for a small, obviously artificial,
light source near the center of the dome. Ranma deactivated the sound
suppressors in his helmet as he approached, laser pistol at the ready.

"Anyone there?" he asked, craning his head. Yes: he could see shapes by
the light. "We're not here to hurt you; we're here to help. Do you speak
English or Japanese?"

Before Shampoo could add that she also spoke Chinese, one of the figures
by the light picked it up - it had been a simple flashlight - and shone
it in their direction. Her hand was shaking, unsteady, as the
flashlight's cone of illumination moved from them over to a few bodies
on the floor nearby. There were only a few plants, small ones, scattered
around, along with an herbalist's mixing bowl.

"They hurt," the one holding the flashlight said, desperation creeping
into her less than perfect Japanese. "I try help them, but... but..."

Ranma lowered his weapon, and he motioned for Shampoo to do the same.
This close, he could see the girl with the flashlight clearly enough. It
was Lin Ke (or Pin Ke - they were identical twins after all), but she
looked different from exactly as he remembered back when she had visited
Nerima to get revenge on Shampoo. Her face was dirty, and she was
clearly nursing a black eye and a cut along the side of her chin was
caked with blood. Her black hair was an unkempt mess and her clothes
were filthy. She was without the earrings, hair flowers, and lower torso
armor he remembered. By the look on her face and her swollen, blood shot
eyes, she had probably been crying up until he'd announced that they
were here to help her, and not kill everyone present.

He looked past the poor girl at the others on the floor: women mostly,
eleven of them in all. Ranma's heart sank for a moment - was that all?
Eleven people out of a whole village? Four of them were children, too,
but they all seemed incapacitated to some degree. It was probably due to
their trek through the glade; it would be terribly dangerous for normal
people, even with Pink and Link helping them to get through. He also
recognized one of the unconscious girls nearby as the other member of
the herbalist duo. She looked to have lost a lot of blood and suffered a
bad stab wound.

"This is bad..." he said, slowly. "Ukyou, I'm going to need Konatsu in
here for a little while. Give him your spare medkit, too. I'll be out in
a minute."

He was about to address Shampoo, when he saw Link looking up at him with
wide eyes.

"Ranma?" she asked, struggling to process his being here, much less his
being here wearing strange camouflage and armor and wielding distinctly
un-characteristic weapons for a martial artist. She had obviously picked
up on his tone of voice and maybe even recognized some of the names as
martial artists from Nerima.

There was no point hiding who he was; in fact, it could help the
situation.

"Yeah," he replied in Japanese, and pointed over to his companion. "And
that's Shampoo."

Link frowned, but nodded compliantly. "Can you really help?"

"We'll do everything we can," Ranma spared Shampoo a quick look to
silently remind her of that fact; just in case. He was well aware of her
animosity towards both Pink and Link. He turned back to the distraught
herbalist. "What happened here?"

Link wiped her forehead, smearing some of the plant oils and grime
there, before turning to where her sister lay unconscious. "Amazons
attack... attack with no warning. No one know why. They crazy, have some
kind of sickness..."

"We know," Shampoo curtly interrupted, switching back to her broken
Japanese instead of far better English. "What happen next?"

Link described just that. "Amazon garrison, they go try talk to their
sisters, but they... they killed... All peoples of the village try and
run away. Was very dark, many never know what happening. Pin Ke say we
should try and escape, too, but I no want leave people behind. She go
and fight while I try and help villagers..."

Clearly, Link blamed herself for her sister's current state, and her
voice nearly broke as she struggled through the rest of what happened.

"We try and save some of them, but they... they afraid, and Amazons
follow us into plants." Link looked down, hiding her face. "Everyone get
hurt and poisoned and there no enough cure for them all..."

At that moment Konatsu walked up to Ranma's side, holding two medikits
in his hands. Link looked back at them with some surprise, not having
heard Konatsu's silent footsteps. She didn't recognize him, couldn't
since they'd never met, but she did recognize the Red Cross on the
medikits. Ranma took that as his cue to leave; Shampoo and Konatsu were
both better at field medic work than he or Ukyou were.

"Get them stable and ready to move out, ASAP," Ranma switched briefly
back to English to make sure the latter phrase sunk in. Handing the
ninja boy his own medikit to make sure he had enough to work with, Ranma
gave him a brief nod and headed back towards the hole they'd made in the
wooden shell Link and Pink had erected as a last defense. Outside, Ukyou
stood watch, one hand on her battle spatula and the other holding her
laser pistol.

"Something wrong?" he asked, eyes scanning the dense nest of foliage all
around them.

She nodded, and looked up. "Smoke."

Ranma tilted his head upwards and saw it as well. Through the
broadleaves and vines, there was a faint line of smoke rising into the
sky, even against the downward assault of the rain. It wasn't a good
sign.

"Claymores?" Ukyou asked, referring to the small number of area denial
booby-traps she carried, a bit of haste slipping into her voice.

"Do it," he replied, eyes narrowing behind his impassive helmet visor.
"I'd bet we have company coming."

-----

"How is the eye?"

Ryouga carefully removed the cold towel from his face, careful not to
get his face wet enough to activate his Jyusenkyou curse. Sitting alone
by a small fire in the middle of the forest, under the breath taking
panorama of a star strewn night sky, how wonderful would it have been if
those word's had come from his beloved Akane? But they could not - they
had come up with a reason to keep her out of the way, at least as long
as he needed to keep a cold compress pressed to his face.

He blinked a few times, and looked at her.

"Let me see," her small hand cupped his chin, angling his face so she
could look into his left eye. She pushed back his eyelids to keep him
from blinking as she examined the swollen orb. Craning her neck during
the analysis, she made a thoughtful 'hmm' sound.

"The vision's cleared up a bit," he said, but tried not to move his
mouth too much for risk of jostling the rest of his head and making it
hard to see into his eye. "I'd like to resume my training tomorrow, even
if it isn't perfect."

"No amount of training can harden the eye, sonny boy," Cologne chided
him, and let his head go. "Just be glad you don't have a retinal tear,
like I thought you did."

He thought briefly about saying something like 'I'd want to train
anyway' but he simply nodded. No one wanted to lose or impair their
vision, and in truth, he was terribly relieved. The training for the
Bakusai Tenketsu was truly something not to be taken lightly.

But he would master it, no matter what!

He wouldn't, couldn't, let Ranma surpass him!

"Thanks, granny. I... um, I..." he stammered, much to his embarrassment,
but licked his lips and pushed forward anyway. "I suppose Akane is
already asleep...?"

Cologne smiled in a mildly amused fashion.

He blushed; of course Akane was asleep. He'd been training until almost
midnight, and by the time he'd washed the blood and grime and bits of
stone from his abused body, it must have been long past the hour when
Akane turned in. He'd missed the chance to spend a night together with
her under the stars. Maybe, sitting together, he'd even have worked out
the courage to hold her hand, or... or something romantic like that.

Maybe he'd have gotten something to eat, too.

His stomach rumbled, and he grinned sheepishly, still looking up at the
sky. He was hungry, and there were a few rabbit snares around that he
had set up and kept tied to the tree next to his backpack (to keep from
getting lost when checking them), but the truth was that half of what he
ate ended up thrown up during practice anyway. And when Akane cooked the
food, bless her for trying so hard, it was more like it all came back
up. In the end, it was probably better to skip dinner entirely.

Nonetheless, his nose twitched, smelling something more than good enough
to eat. Turning to the source, he saw Cologne holding a wooden spit put
through a small river fish of the kind she had originally tried training
him to catch with his hands without getting wet. So: she had thought of
that, too? He smiled without meaning to; he had studied many martial
arts masters, but he had never truly trained with or developed a rapport
with any of them except his father and grandfather.

He silently bowed his head, and took the offered meal. It wasn't much,
and it was pretty lukewarm, but he could probably count on one hand the
number of times someone who wasn't one of his estranged parents had
given him anything. He ate slowly, taking small bites, as they sat
together by the fire. Cologne had a serene, perfectly calm look on her
face.

Even when he finished the little fish and tossed what was left into the
fire, neither spoke. He supposed they were both loners of a similar sort
and not used to making idle chit chat. Of course he was alone most of
the time because of his two curses (he cursed that bastard Saotome at
the thought of his Jyusenkyou curse), but he knew he wasn't very social
to begin with. From what little he knew about her, Cologne was the
strongest woman in the Amazon village. He could see how that would
isolate someone, even against their own wishes.

Finally, inevitably, he felt he had to say something.

"I'll beat him," he vowed, staring deep into the red and orange flame.
"He can't be stronger than me. Not someone like that."

For a while, Cologne said nothing, and then she closed her eyes and
sighed.

"I know that feeling well."

Wearily, she stood back up, leaning heavily on her walking stick. It was
an almost comical sight - this tiny old woman, shorter than even the
staff she held. But she was strong; powerful almost beyond normal human
conception. Slowly, the ancient Amazon began to retreat back to the
other campsite with the sleeping bags.

"Tomorrow," she said, suddenly, and without turning around. "Tomorrow,
you will see the breaking point. It is a difficult technique, and one
tenth of the way towards being called a master of the godai. It brings
joy to the twilight years of an old woman to see youngsters with so much
potential."

Ryouga felt a surge of pride at that, even though the praise had to be
shared with his hated rival.

"And if things here don't work out..." She looked at him with a lewd
expression and smiled teasingly. "I'm sure we can find an Amazon wife
for you easily enough!"

He made a half disgusted face and tried to hide his red face by quickly
looking away. "Goodnight, granny!"

She cackled mirthfully behind his back.

"Good night, sonny boy."

-----

Ryouga flexed his ki, and the earth trembled.

Amid the slowly raining debris of what used to be a one story
storefront, Elder Pi Lu weaved between the flying stone and mortar. The
two had been fighting for almost five minutes, and the lost boy had
finally felt confident in his analysis of her fighting capabilities. Pi
Lu was no Khu Lon, though she had that same great well of ki within her.
Her mind was addled and clouded by the Venom that had seeped through her
skin, and she seemed to lack Cologne's vast knowledge of pressure points
and counter strikes.

What she had instead was brute force.

With a brush of her hand, she knocked aside an overturned stone table
that had to weigh at least two tons. When she stomped down one of her
feet, the ground cracked, and a precise series of blasting points
(though he thought of them more like 'expanding' points) triggered
beneath him. A dozen lances of stone, the tips almost diamond sharp,
erupted from out of the ground aiming to impale him from every side.
She, too, seemed to be testing the limits of his abilities, as that many
incoming objects were the absolute upper limit to the number of
different breaking points he could spread across his body at one time.
Rather than try triggering them all before they could turn him into a
kebob, the instant they touched his skin, he sent a pulse of ki into the
ground from his right foot, destroying the base of the front four and
rolling out of the way.

He spun in place, boots carving a curved line in the muddy ground,
sweeping his arms out to the side. The lances of stone had shifted,
adjusted, and reacquired him. Just inches from his face and upper body,
all of the eight remaining stone spears exploded into wet clumps of
dirt. Triggering a breaking point from any part of the body was child's
play compared to triggering several of them, using different parts of
the body, all at the same time.

He stood, blocked a strike with his left hand that felt almost as if a
grenade had gone off, and retrieved a bladed bandanna. Looking up, he
could see another rain of explosive stone, but just as worryingly, he'd
lost track of Pi Lu's movement. Silently summoning a shishi hokoudan in
his left hand, he let it violently disperse in a wide shotgun-like spray
of mental energy, tearing most of the explosive 'delayed breaking point'
rocks to pieces in midair. The few that made it through the
conflagration were immediately sheared by a buzzsaw of iron cloth.

He caught sight of a rapid movement at the edge of his field of vision.
It was Pi Lu, alright, skating along the surface of the ground, leaving
a messy trail of upturned mud and water in her wake. Droplets seemed to
spin, frozen, in midair, and the rainfall continued to fall as a mind
numbingly slow pace. It wasn't just faster than human movement; it was
faster than human perception. The two of them were basically equal in
that respect and he knew from experience that she would not willingly
close the gap with him... not until he was weak, and ready for the coup
de gras.

It was time to use the two advantages he usually didn't have: his brain
and his gear.

Reaching down to his belt, he liberated his H&K Mk23 US SOCOM and took
aim. By his estimation, his target was moving in a shallow curve at
around fifty to fifty five kilometers per hour, which was a respectable
dash speed even by Ranma's standards. Holding the handgun steady, he
adjusted his footing and fired. Three 45ACP caliber bullets, traveling
as a speed of around two hundred meters per second (it would have been
more, but the range was just so damn short), crossed the distance
between Ryouga and Pi Lu in an eleventh of a second. All three pinged
harmlessly off of the stone bracers covering the Amazon Elder's arms.

'Good,' he thought, turning out of the way as three narrow stone blades
shot up out of the ground in front of him. Sweeping his arm after
avoiding being impaled, he shattered them, triggered a breaking point
under his feet to prevent the sinkhole forming there, and fired again.
She was more wary this time, and two of the shots missed, while the
third was again deflected.

He couldn't move as quickly as she could, not with the ground as muddy
and slippery as it was now, but he was able to step into a reasonably
high speed flying step. Predictably, Pi Lu cut short her own movement,
cutting to a stop like an ice skater. She still didn't want to close
with him; even now that he'd drawn a gun on her. He pulled back his left
hand, and out from the side came the bandanna he had thrown earlier,
slicing a line in the ground as it came in fast and low. Pi Lu saw or
sensed it coming, set her stance, and blocked it with the stone bracers
around her legs.

Hibiki style 'iron cloth' Tetsununo bandannas could cut through a solid
tree in one pass without stopping. Once, Ryouga had even been able to
cut corded steel wire with it. Here, the bandanna hit with full force,
cut a narrow groove in the stone, and twisted before plowing into the
mud. The test proved that he had been correct in his earlier assumption
- that was no normal stone bound to her arms and legs. Like he had done
with his old umbrella, Pi Lu had used her ki to modify the physical
properties of what she wore.

Not surprisingly, the .45 caliber rounds of his SOCOM couldn't do a
thing against that kind of defense. Firing again, with one hand, he used
his left to retrieve his other less conventional handgun. Just as
expected, Pi Lu stood and blocked the three bullets with her forearm
bracers. When he fired with the gun in his other hand, however, she made
the fatal mistake of treating it just like she had the SOCOM.

The mistake was that there was a huge difference between 200 meters per
second and light speed. A difference of around 1.5 million times, to be
exact. Had she known the nature of this weapon, in fact, or had he used
this weapon first, Ryouga was sure that she would have concentrated in
dodging the muzzle and the expected bullet trajectory. No one wants to
block an attack they haven't seen at least once before. After being
fired at by a regular handgun several times, a laser had to come as an
unexpected surprise.

The beam dwelled on her cheek for all of a tenth of a second before her
stone bracer got in the way. By then, she was already blind in one eye,
and half her face had been cooked away. In a normal person, even that
brief moment of exposure would have been so painful and dehabilitating
as to knock them on their ass, if not out of the fight. Pi Lu's Venom
infected state kept her upright and conscious despite the damage. A
burning scorch on her bracer smoked in the rain.

"It's over," Ryouga said, holstering the now nearly empty SOCOM. The
hand was better spent steadying his aim with the laser pistol. He fired
and she tried to block, but the beam trailed over her right hand,
slicing it in two. He was about to try again, looking for the headshot
that would finally put her down, when he felt a surge in ki beneath him.

'This again?!'

A burst of ki from his right foot destroyed the stone spear just as it
was forming, but that was only the beginning. He could feel through his
sakkijutsu and his own mastery of the breaking point that more were
forming - many more. Worse, he could see that Pi Lu was sinking into the
safety of the ground. Elbowing another upward thrusting stone spear with
his right arm, sliding his heel into the base of another, and firing at
the descending Pi Lu, he felt the two breaking points go off, but
virtually all of his laser pistol's energy ended up wasted on the
woman's armbands.

There was little time to lament lost opportunities. He had to keep
moving, keep striking; keep intercepting the lances of stone coming at
him from every direction. He whirled like a dynamo, arms and fists
moving in arcs both broad and short as he struck with sliding feet and
knees. Every second or two he would also have to send a small pulse into
the ground to keep it from engulfing his feet or pulling him under or
otherwise breaking his ever shifting stance.

'Damnit!' he cursed, blocking a shotgun wave of razor edged fragments
and shrapnel with his right hand, blurring it to nearly amaguriken level
speeds, where a hundred strikes seemed to merge into one. He turned
ninety degrees, sensing another attack, and nearly stopped in surprise:
one of the already dispatched infected Amazons was about to strike,
swinging her sword at him despite the conspicuous lack of a head on her
shoulders.

He caught the blade in his hand, elbowed another granite spearpoint, and
fired three times with his T-6B, burning three identical holes in this
newcomer's body. They were not haphazard shots; each one severed the
spinal cord in a different spot. The Amazon continued to try and press
her weapon down, but the blade was between his fingers, and it wouldn't
budge an inch against his own formidable strength. Annoyed, he pulled
back and swung his elbow up, launching the woman into the air towards
him before introducing her sternum to his elbow in the most bone and
ligament crushing fashion.

In that brief contact he felt it.

He frowned. That was why this crippled and destroyed body remained
upright, and why it had interfered in his fight with Pi Lu. There could
be no mistaking it: there were inorganic breaking points within the
headless woman's body. It was a nice move, and he could see how it would
form an effective counter to someone who had mastered the traditional
form of the breaking point, which was entirely ineffective against or
through an organic medium.

The animated corpse landed nimbly on its feet, and Ryouga turned to
brush aside another attack, this time from a second Amazon. Like before,
this one should by all rights have been dead; the upper half of the head
was simply gone. Behind him, a third advanced, wielding a horse killing
sword the length of her own body. He sent another pulse into the ground,
pre-empting yet another attempt to draw him underground.

Putting away his laser pistol, Ryouga snarled and lunged into the one he
had just blocked with his free hand. She wielded twin bonbori, massive
iron weights like oversized maces, but he wasn't concerned with that.
These puppets were more distraction than true danger. Pi Lu was assuming
he couldn't do anything substantial to them, and that they would
distract him enough for a more lethal move to get through.

Splaying out his fingers, he slammed his palm into the lower torso of
the mace wielding body, dug his fingers into the flesh there, and lifted
her off her feet. There were any number of dead bodies lying around; he
couldn't afford to waste any unnecessary time or energy on any one of
them. Luckily, he would not need to use the full version of the
bastardized Seirensho Tenketsu, just enough to set off the normal
breaking points within the body. The flesh around where his fingers
found purchase began to burn, and a second later he tossed the body onto
the ground.

It hadn't looked like much, but his strike had not only destroyed the
network of stone particles within the animated corpse, but fused them as
well, with the power of his Smelting Point. The one with the sword came
in before he could be sure that Pi Lu wouldn't be able to re-reanimate
the one he had just defeated. The decapitated Amazon swung her sword
with what must, once, have been a practiced blow. Compared to Kuno,
however, what speed and skill she had was a poor joke.

Stepping in, he caught her wrist, turned so his back was to her front
and nearly pressed against him, and simultaneously disarmed her with one
hand and slammed a palm into her midriff with the other. A blistered
handprint appeared where he had struck, and in an instant, her entire
body seemed to stiffen and freeze solid. The third, wielding twin
swords, was simply too slow. A palm strike plowed into her right breast,
sending her spinning like a top before falling hard to the ground.

'Now... before you can make any more of them!' Ryouga didn't waste time.
Stomping down, he sent a pulse of ki into a breaking point several feet
under the surface of the earth. Like a depth charge, it reached a
certain substratum and exploded, sending shockwaves through the ground.
A shallow crater formed in the surface from the blast below it.

Slamming his heel down again, and again and again, he began to zero in
on where Pi Lu was hiding. She wasn't stone herself, so she would be in
an area of the earth with no natural blasting points. That 'vacant' area
seemed to move and confirm his suspicions. He kept up his barrage,
finally forcing Pi Lu entirely onto the defensive. After only a few
seconds, the entire swath of the village of Yaocaicun where they had
been fighting was leveled and cratered like the surface of the moon.

"Finally!" he sneered behind his helmet, his heel drumming a steady beat
of explosions under the earth. He'd caught her between explosions, and
proceeded to increase not only the power but the rapidity of the
breaking points all around her. He triggered one every third of a
second, as an ever widening and deepening crater began to form where one
of Yaocaicun's one story homes had once been.

Finally, he raised his whole foot and stomped down; the crater tore open
from the massive breaking point triggered below. A geyser of rubble and
broken stone and earth filled the air, and amid it, one crushed and
broken human body. Pi Lu landed hard, and right against one of the
broken stone lances created during the fight. Her back broke with an
audible crack, and she slumped to the ground, motionless. Now able to
get a good look, Ryouga could see that her neck had already been broken
and skull caved in by the underground barrage.

The infant shishi hokoudan he had been forming in his hand faded away.

Looking around, he couldn't find any of India Squad, so he took a deep
breath and radioed in. His Command HUD indicated they were all alive, at
least. "Squad. Report."

"Ryu, here," Ryu answered first. "We're over by the marketplace."

"Finally finished leveling that part of town, huh?" Mousse joked.

"We have also found two most fortunate survivors," Kuno added, "A
brother a sister who had taken auspicious shelter within a storage
freezer."

"Good," Ryouga took a step, and then paused. "Uhm.... Mousse, I'm going
to need you to come and lead me to where you are."

To their credit, and his unspoken relief, no one snickered about his
'directional handicap.'

"I'm on my way, Lieutenant."

-----

Zraz looked down at the larval human clinging to her father's leg. He'd
never seen one so small and helpless looking before. Most of the humans
he had experiences and memories about were large, and of their 'male'
gender. Even the sire of this immature human seemed to be slightly on
the small side. It was hard to believe that such unimpressive specimens
were worth sending an entire strike force to retrieve.

All for what: some little pools of stagnant water?

Slithering along a wet stone path, Zraz caught sight of the Sectoids as
well as Sneer, easily identified by his titian robes. A small number of
humans stood nearby under the Ethereal's mental thrall. Some of these
had to be the potential Trenchards he had been told about. They didn't
look very impressive to the Snakeman, unarmed as they were and standing
around with blank expressions on their faces.

Zraz heard the little human they were escorting mutter something. Her
father replied, and then they hushed up. The snakeman Commander looked
over his shoulder at them and the small one immediately went back to
hiding behind the larger of the pair. The language these humans spoke
was completely unintelligible, just like the scribbles they used for
writing. Zraz had a spare Mind Probe on him, but if he could, his
preference was to avoid it.

Sneer floated in their direction, and the humans behind Zraz began to
make frightened squeals and other strange noises. He was on the verge of
having one of his soldiers forcibly restrain the two humans when,
abruptly, they shut up. Checking for himself Zraz could see their faces
were slack and their eyes wide and dull.

So: Sneer was already taking what he wanted from them?

It took only a moment for the Ethereal to tear the knowledge it desired
from the minds of the two humans. They collapsed into blissful
unconsciousness just as Sneer turned and floated slowly back towards the
muddy little pools of water. Zraz let out a low pitched sound, the
snakeman equivalent of a sigh, and slithered over to where the humans
lay.

"What do we do with them?" One of the soldiers who had escorted the
humans asked the question, but didn't make any effort to aim his rifle
at the prone targets. Zraz had no ostensible problem executing the two,
and since the Ethereal had not given him orders either way, it seemed
there was little reason not to.

Except...

This whole thing with the pools seemed... well, dubious. To begin with,
the whole notion of "metamorphic" life forms seemed outlandish, even by
Star Spawn standards. On the other claw, the ancient and inert molecular
control network on Earth had caused some strange natural phenomenon...
Who knew what these humans knew that Sneer had discounted? If everything
he had been told about what the Sectoids planned to do here was true, it
would be wise to keep any possible sources of local knowledge alive...
at least for the immediate future.

"Leave them," Zraz said, and headed towards the cold springs the locals
called 'Jyusenkyou.' There, one of the human test subjects was just
stepping into one of the pools of water. By what he knew about human
mammal physiology, it was a female, but not immature like the other one.
It stepped into the water, immersed itself, and emerged.

It was followed by what Zraz assumed to be a male. This one emerged as a
female. Snakemen only had a single gender, so the change was not exactly
jaw dropping to Zraz, but it was academically interesting. He didn't
know any aliens with genders. The Mutons had two genders, but were all
cybernetically sterilized soon after maturation. The Ethereals used to
reproduce, but didn't any more.

The Sectoids had the human test subjects try out the opposite pool, too,
which turned the female into a male. Only when they were sure of the
effects did they begin to immerse themselves. They entered looking like
identical clones and emerged that way too, a fact Zraz found quite
funny.

"Commander," Zrell contacted him through The Mind. "We have the object
and the larval human."

Zraz turned towards the tall mountain to the south where Zrell and his
soldiers had been sent on their mission. In an instant, all the
information related to the mission, from losses incurred to enemies
killed to ammunition expended, all of it was available for his perusal
via The Mind. Zraz did not like to nit pick or micromanage his command
level subordinates, however, so he rarely became personally involved.
The mission seemed to have been as easy as clipping one's claws, anyway.

Sensing all this, Sneer's cold Ethereal mind touched his own.

"Return immediately," Zraz commanded, whatever levity he'd had now
erased. Sneer's mind left his, and the Snakeman Commander warily turned
to the north. There was some trouble there from what he had heard. Less
than a third as many hosts had been around by the time the terror units
got unloaded and herded in the right direction. Also worrying were scout
reports of fighting near one of the local habitations.

The human defenders sure hadn't wasted any time. It was a pity about all
those lost hosts, that much was true, but the situation was still
favorable. According to The Mind, he had exactly one hundred and five
mature Chryssalids in the area.

It was time to start using them.
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