Tag: video game story

Working through the backlog: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Up for reviewLeave a comment

Evening folks and welcome to the first in a short but hopefully enjoyable series of reviews that don’t really matter but will hopefully kickstart a creative spark past the blockage formed by six-to-thirteen day work weeks and an absolutely fucked sleep cycle, since all the cocaine and hookers don’t seem to be doing the job anymore. Speaking of expensive hobbies: video games. Aren’t they great?

Yeah, I can still segue with the best of them.

As some of you might know, I spent a while in Canada. Away from a console for approaching two years I missed some of the biggest launches for some pretty huge franchises. I also missed the rather dismal launch of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which underperformed miserably compared to its brethren (but still made tonnes of money) and to many marked an ignominious shift in the famous franchise’s fortunes (sorry, I’ve been trying to increase my alliteration lately). And that’s a shame because it’s probably the most I’ve enjoyed a Call of Duty game in a long time.

Now, I’m talking solely about the single player. Haven’t sat down for a multiplayer session since Modern Warfare 2, what, seven years ago? Something like that. I like a bit of story behind my acts of virtual violence (alliteration) and better written dialogue then what a racist, homophobic thirteen year old (they’re all racist and homophobic) will scream through their overpriced headphones. Because that’s not an outdated joke at all.

So I sat down and played through the single-player campaign and the story was, honestly, not good. The narrative is riddled with ridiculous cliches and plot-holes, with an enemy so needlessly, impossibly evil that I simply cannot think up a good metaphor for how moronic Salem Kotch and the SDF are. The best I could come up with is that their delivery boys blow their own brains out if they don’t deliver the pizza in thirty minutes or less, and I fully acknowledge how lame that is. At one point Salem (stupid fucking name by the by) just demands that the player character and his mates surrender themselves for, I shit you not, “immediate execution!” I mean, c’mon, I get it. These guys have got the whole ‘death before dishonour’ thing going, but demanding that the opposing side literally just roll over and die is just stupid – and unrealistic – writing. I’d also really like it if we took the whole “villain shoots their own men to prove to the hero how much of a villain they are” trope out behind the shed and shot it, and having your antagonists openly and verbally declare their hatred of freedom is just a little bit too on the fucking nose. But hey, this is an American game.

Anyway, that’s just my issues with the villains. Don’t get me started on the casually telegraphed named character deaths, the obvious plot twists, the clunky dialogue, the main player character being given command (because of course the grizzled white American male is) despite the game itself pointing out what an incompetent leader he is, or the fact that the entire story (about two dozen missions all told – including side operations – across the solar system) apparently takes place in one fucking day. One. Fucking. Day.

And it’s tragic because between the stark design-by-committee cliches and abject paint-by-numbers bullshit you can see the seeds of a genuinely great story with some genuinely fantastic characters.

The actual idea of a heavily militarised former colony, with a culture that has diverged sharply not least due to the enormous distance from Earth and the hardships that entails, makes for a fascinating villain if done right (like in the books and Netflix series, The Expanse). Throw in the fact that the SDF military is full of robots (whereas we only ever see E3N on the UNSA’s side) and you could have had a really interesting difference of opinion. But instead of hardened and bitter frontiersman who’ve built a culture around the machines that have helped them survive in the cold regions of space, we got Space Nazi Jon Snow telling us how much freedom sucks.

Your wingman and best friend, Nora Salter, is a Lebanese woman (voiced by an American, but you can’t have everything). She’s smart, aggressive, opinionated and loyal to a fault. But instead of playing as this well-rounded foreign woman of colour we have to play as a generic grizzled American white guy.

And for all the awful dialogue and cliches, there are some beautiful moments. E3N’s sense of humour is delightful, and, to my shock, as telegraphed as their deaths were I found my heart-strings being tugged as named members of the crew began dropping. The underlying message, that good commanders need to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, and order those under their command to do the same if it means victory, starts off clunky but ultimately works out quite nicely with a solid emotional payoff.

This is a decent game, and with a bunch of little changes and a smarter story it could have been great. What a pity.

Life in the Avenger’s Barracks (16)

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Not at all trueLeave a comment

Chapter 16: Life after death

According to Cesar Vargas, who had fought his way up and down South and Central America, the forests and jungles had all gotten quieter over the past twenty years. There were fewer birds and bats, insects, snakes, reptiles and other predators, all despite the fact that the jungles and forests of the world had been allowed to expand unchecked across the agricultural land that humanity had been forced to abandon.

Vargas blamed the aliens, though he didn’t know the exact cause. Dr Tygen had delivered some hypotheses – an alien virus working its way through the native fauna, an unseen and undiscovered pest species introduced into the ecosystem, hunting and trapping by the aliens for their own experiments – but it was never something he had the time to give any sort of priority. Whatever the reason the results were the same. Fewer animals. Less noise. Eerily quiet jungles and forests, especially at night.

***

They crept through the forest in a ragged line, quietly dodging from tree to tree. Cheng was more or less in the lead with Donaldson on her left and Leroy on her right, Michelle King and Dekker on the flanks and Navarro hanging slightly back with her long rifle. There’d been a flutter of wings as they’d rappelled from the skyranger but otherwise the only thing they could hear was muffled crunch of their own footsteps and their own deep breaths.

It was a clear night and a clear crescent moon provided long shadows for them to hide in as they came to the edge of the forest and spotted the ADVENT research facility. There was a new road out front, bordered by the waist-high alloy barriers that the Administration liked to strew liberally about. An empty watchtower stood on their side of the road and piles of crates made out of the same sort-of-metal as the barriers stood on the other.

Cheng pushed herself tight against her tree as she peered at the darkened facility, scanning the squat, ugly building for movement and colour. There was nothing out front, no patrols or guards as far as she could see, but there were shadows on the rooftop swivelling back and forth with inorganically perfect timing.

Turrets, Cheng thought, at least two of them. That’d be the first line of defence, but what about the rest?

Like the Blacksite they’d raided weeks before these ADVENT facilities relied more on stealth and secrecy than overt displays of brute force to deter attack. But, like the Blacksite, they were still well defended enough to warrant more than a little caution and at least a little planning.

The turrets are above us, we need to take higher ground.

“Gabby, Dori, get up into the tower when we advance. Let’s take it slow, advance to cover and take up overwatch positions. We take out the turrets first, then clear out the facility. Room by room.”

There was a second’s hesitation as the rest of the squad waited for the Commander to add any additional instructions or say anything else. King seemed to tilt her head towards the sky, as if that would make him easier to hear. The Commander stayed silent in her ear, indicating his approval. The rest of Menace One nodded.

“Okay. Let’s be quick, quiet and watch each other’s backs. Let’s go.”

***

There wasn’t much of a funeral for Gerry O’Neill. They found a hill in the north of Ireland covered in long grass, far enough away from any settlements and homesteads that the grave would go undisturbed. They scraped up what was left of him into a body bag, along with what was left of his armour, his knives and his whetstone. So he could stab any angel that looked at him funny, according to Karen Nilsen trying very hard not to stutter while she said it. Most had laughed at that in that polite, sort-of-respectful way people chuckle about the recently deceased. For all that people ask that their funerals not be sad affairs, that it be a cheerful celebration of the life they lived, it’s a rare friend that is truly capable of following through on this particular part of the will and testament.

They dug a hole in the muddy soil, about six foot deep as was the old custom, and lowered the body in. Cremation had been suggested, but Gabby Navarro had shaken her head at that. He hadn’t been fighting for the whole Earth really, just one particular patch and the people he knew from it. Someone had offered to build him a coffin. Li Ming Cheng had shaken her head. He would have hated to be trapped in a box. Far too similar to far too many memories that had haunted him until the end. Chief Engineer Lily Shen had provided a body bag she insisted was biodegradable, would melt away within a month, and O’Neill’s body would rejoin that patch of Earth he’d fought so long and so hard for.

They gathered around the hole. All the combat operatives who operated in Menace One, a few members of the technical crew and the Commander himself standing in a loose circle as the rain began to fall, except for Banerjee who was pushed out in a wheelchair since he’d only recently woken up from surgery after being stabbed in the gut by an Archon. Navarro pulled the cigarette from behind her ear and lit it with a scowl, dark hair falling across her eyes and sticking to her face. Leroy produced a set of rosary beads and said a quiet prayer, then he and Cheng hefted their shovels and began scooping mud over the shapeless body bag.

“Does anyone have anything they want to say?” The Commander asked, looking in Navarro’s direction with a kind smile. She just took another drag on her cigarette, the tip glowing bright red in the approaching gloom.

“I honestly didn’t know much about him,” Adams said after the silence became uncomfortable. “It’s gonna be weird not having him around though.”

“He wasn’t the type to open up,” Michelle King agreed, “but he was always there.”

“Honest,” Cheng said as she dropped another clump of mud onto the body, “he was an honest guy. And reliable as a Swiss watch.”

There were nods around the hole. It was an odd idiom for the Chinese born and battle-raised fighter to use, but no one noticed or had reason to disagree.

“I’ll always remember the one time he opened up to me,” Cheng continued to speak, continued to shovel, “not long after we dealt with the Russian woman.” She paused her work long enough to raise thumb and forefinger against her temple and fire an imaginary bullet. “Me and him, I don’t know, we had an understanding after that. One night I told him some things that I couldn’t forget. He told me some things that he couldn’t forget. We got drunk,” Cheng laughed, “only time I think any of us would have seen him drunk.”

Navarro finished her cigarette and lit another one.

“He told this story, about how he got nabbed by ADVENT when he was a boy. All short hair and acne, he said. He borrowed his father’s pocket knife and used it to steal a car.” There were some incredulous smiles at that, “Don’t ask me how, he refused to tell me. Anyway he took this car and began driving around, a scrawny little thirteen year old who could barely reach the pedals and see over the dashboard at the same time. He drove until he found the first ADVENT security network tower he could,” she smiled at the memory, “the one’s that look like lampposts. And he rammed it. Apparently it didn’t do much beyond scratch the paint on the fucking thing. ADVENT came in and scooped him up, put him in a cell.”

Cheng hesitated for a moment, her shovel hovering over the hole for a long second before she shook her head and tossed the mud.

“What happened to him then doesn’t need to be repeated. What I’ll always remember is the smile on his face as he talked about stealing the car. He knew how ridiculous it was, barely able to see where he was going, looking for something to knock over. It was a knowing smile. He knew what he was, and didn’t try to be anything else. He was honest with us and he was honest with himself. I think that’s something we should all try and be.”

There were nods and murmurs of agreement. James King muttered a “too right” and Louise Seo rumbled out a “definitely.”

And that was it. No one said another word. They stood in the rain for a little longer than began to drift off wordlessly in ones or twos, until it was just the burial party and Navarro. Them filling the grave and her watching from its edge, smoking her cigarettes.

When it was done, not long before sunset, they built a small cairn over the freshly turned earth out of the stones they’d unearthed while digging the grave, piling the stones around a metal cross that Shen had made. There was no name, but no one thought it necessary. The location was marked and they’d find a proper headstone when they won. If they won.

Navarro was the last to leave the grave, smoking away as the sun sank and the grey clouds became a black sky and only the tip of her cigarette could be seen in the darkness. No one knew what to say to her and no one tried to coach her back onto the ship. No one knew how, Navarro having always been almost as withdrawn as O’Neill.

Perhaps that was why the two of them had found comfort in each other’s arms for a small amount of time.

***

The Commander sat in his usual place on the Bridge, elbows resting on knees, hands steepled beneath his chin and eyes glued to the ‘Doomsday Clock’ – the bright red countdowns that represented the best predictions of Resistance intelligence networks for the next ADVENT attack or advance – above the holographic world map.

Neil Perry stood at a rough idea of attention, beanie held tightly in one hand and eyes fixed firmly ahead. He’d never been any sort of military until Miss Annette had brought him with Galina to join X-Com, and they’d spent more time teaching him how to use the plasma rifles and put on the armour or preparing him for his eventual turn in the Psionic Chamber to teach him more than the basics of military discipline.

Not that they seemed to care all that much about military discipline round here anyway. Miss Michelle, standing to his right, looked more outlaw than soldier, with dark blue hair shorn short on the sides and gelled into spikes on top, and tattoos covering both her bare arms. Mister Leroy, standing to his right, wasn’t much better with his thick black beard and a stained uniform. Then there was Miss Li Ming a full head taller than everyone else and looking like she’d just come straight from the gym, arms dripping sweat and the tuft of hair on top of her otherwise cleanshaven head slicked back with more of the same. Cesar Vargas somehow seemed the worst of the lot, with cheeks covered in stubble and uncombed hair, his posture slightly slouched and irritated boredom written plain as day across his face. Hardly the highly disciplined guerrilla army Neil had expected to find when Miss Annette had asked for volunteers back at the Ranch, but then again he’d also half expected him or Galina to have exploded by now.

Truth be told it was the non-combat personnel on the Avenger, the technical crew, who were most concerned with issues of regulation and discipline. Looking around the bridge he could see Martin Singh, clean-shaven and wearing a neatly pressed uniform, snapping off a tight salute as he handed CO Bradford a tablet computer. Or Gertrude Wilders with her long locks tied back in a perfect bun (not a single hair out of place) and even sharper creases in her uniform, running through a checklist that Neil strongly suspected she knew better than her own name, but ticking things off anyway because those were the rules. She seemed a sharp difference to the members of Menace One. Tidy, controlled, disciplined with a friendly smile on her face as she went about her work. Not the lazy smile that Miss Li Ming wore, like she’d rather watch paint dry than deal with what was in front of her. Like she was only humouring you when she listened to you speak. Or Miss Michelle’s arrogant grin, like she was the only person in on some big joke and everyone else its victim. Made him nervous, Miss Michelle’s grin. No, Miss Gertrude had a much prettier smile than them. She looked like someone who was good at what she did and enjoyed doing it, like she smiled because she was happy. Much prettier.

Neil realised he was staring and looked away, finding that spot directly in front of his eyes and focusing on that. He realised that Central had begun talking to the Commander, loudly enough that it was likely best he started listening.

“… Dr Lynch would again like to remind you that he isn’t a trained psychiatrist, psychologist or counsellor, so his opinion should not be taken as-“

“Just tell me what his goddamn opinion I’ll decide what to think of it.”

“He says Navarro wants to be put back into the field straight away and he can’t think of any good reason to keep her off. She’s processed O’Neill’s death as well as can be expected and is keeping her emotions in check.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“Dr Lynch believes she should still be kept off the next few missions. Give her time to grieve properly. He believes that she keeping a leash on your emotional state in the ship’s bar is a lot different to the stress of a battlefield.”

The Commander grunted, still not looking away from the Doomsday Clock, not even for a second.

“What do you think?”

Bradford shrugged, “If she thinks she can do it, I think we should trust her.”

The Commander nodded, sighed and finally dragged his attention away from the Doomsday clock and towards his troops still standing at attention.

“At ease,” he smiled Neil saw the exhaustion in his eyes, shot through with red and surrounded by heavy bags. Dr Tygen said he took deaths under his command harder than others. By the looks of things that still wouldn’t stop him from sending them back into the meat grinder.

Bradford took a step forward.

“The Commander,” he said in that slow, careful way of his, “has concerns about our personnel levels that he’d like to discuss with you.”

***

“They wanna get you recruiting?”

Michelle gave her brother a sideways look, “That really so hard to believe?”

“A little, yeah.”

She snorted and threw her sweaty towel at his face. James snatched it out of the air with a laugh tossed it under armed back to her. She in turn caught the damp cloth and used it to mop up her glistening forehead. They were in the Guerrilla Warfare School, better known as the Gym since that was what it was used for the most, spotting each other as they worked out.

“I’m just saying you’re not the recruiting sort.” James walked over to the pull up bar on the wall, drying his hands on his own towel before grabbing the bar and crossing his ankles.

“I’ll have you know I can be very convincing.”

“Convincing. Someone that. You nicked. A truck full. Of gold bricks. Is different. To. Convincing. Them to fight. For you.”

Michelle waited for him to finish his set before replying, not wanting to limit their conversation to what could be said between breaths and reps.

“I know that. But recruitment’s not the problem.”

“What is then?”

“We got no shortage of volunteers, but fucking half of them are children. The other half might have some experience dodging peacekeepers, but they got no experience fighting andies and muties.”

James raised an eyebrow and gave her a half grin, and she knew what his reply would be before he said it.

“Neither did you once upon a time.”

She shook her head.

“No I didn’t, but when I joined the proper fight the aliens still weren’t taking us seriously. I had time to learn how to kill’em before I had to know for certain. These kids’ll get tossed into the deep end straight away and the Commander is worried half of them won’t survive the first mission without us babysitting them all the way through.”

“So what does the Commander want you to do then?”

Michelle took a long pull from her water bottle before replying, “Ask around. Apparently me, Cesar, Leroy and Li talk the most with our old cells. He wants to see if we can get a few veterans on board. Kind’a hard bastards who’ve seen at least some of the shit we’ve seen. Won’t need their hands held when the shooting starts.”

“We’ve done well so far. Only two deaths ain’t that bad. The Commander really think we need the help?”

Michelle hesitated before she answered. She’d barely been able to blink without images of O’Neill’s corpse popping up behind her eyelids, fucking headless and mangled by a dead andromedan’s hissing metal fists. Bits of brain and bone splattered across a nearby car, blood fucking everywhere. Just. Fucking. Everywhere. Yeah, only two deaths. But Michelle wasn’t about to forget what happened to Gerry, and she knew that Li still muttered Eva Degroot’s name while she slept.

James saw the hesitation and there was a flash of panic in his eyes, “I’m not saying that their deaths weren’t tragedies. I’m just saying that during the first war most frontline combat units had, what, an eighty percent casualty rate? And we’ve achieved more than entire brigades have. We’re hardly what I’d call understrength.”

His sister shook her head, took another long drink from her water bottle.

“How many weeks have you spent in the infirmary since you got here? I’ve lost count, and I reckon you have to,” Michelle didn’t keep the edge out of her voice as she said it. She’d spent a long time worried about his suicidal tendencies. “What happens if you’re in here again for an extended stay and then Leroy gets put out of commision as well? Now I’m not too bad with a medkit, but with both our combat medics out of action that’d be just asking for trouble.” She gave her brother a firm look, the kind meant to show she’d not listen to any further argument. “Shit. Yeah, we’re not understrength yet but we’re not far fucking off it either.”

“Fair enough,” James said, “but why tell you?”

Michelle laughed, shrugged, “‘Cause I know people.”

“You ‘know people’?”

“I know people.”

“Fair enough. Who d’you know?”

“You’ll find out if any of them decide to join up.”

“You mean I might finally get to meet your friends?”

“I promise nothing.”

***

The mission went to shit when the squad was halfway through the clearing between the trees and the barrier along the edge of the road.

Cheng heard a roar and turned to see a muton charge around the corner, followed by a second and a stun lancer. She heard curses in four different languages as she threw herself into the barrier just as the first spray of plasma fire melted the dirt and grass were her feet had been a few seconds before. Another roar from another direction and Cheng poked her head up long enough to see another muton storming out through the front door, followed by an andromedan and a red armoured officer.

“Now we’ve got ourselves a fucking party!” Cheng heard King laugh and looked over in time to see the Australian lean over the barrier nearby and let rip with her gatling cannon, unleashing a steady stream of plasma that ripped apart the andy’s armour in a hail of sparks.

The mutons roared and chased her back behind cover with a splattering of fire. One of them jerked as a pistol shot from the tower smacked into its too-thick skull, causing it to turn its attention up to where Navarro and Donaldson had managed to climb. It turned towards them and Cheng saw an opportunity, spinning the barrels on her own cannon as she stood out of cover and unleashed a torrent of plasma. Half the muton’s head disappeared in a cloud of pink and orange, the rest following the body down as it collapsed in a twitching mess. Leroy and Decker fired at the turrets, as did Dori, both of them starting to smoke and hiss and one of them exploding like a roman candle.

Then they were all forced down by a barrage of fire from the aliens. Leroy cried out and spun, hitting the ground and growling through clenched teeth. He pushed himself back against the barrier, muttering curses, right hand wrapped around his rifle and left arm a smoking mess.

Then Dori screamed at Gabby to get her fucking head down. Cheng looked up to see Navarro leaning over the railing, about to take a shot at one of the mutons distracted by King’s laughing taunts. The surviving turret twitched in her direction and fired a burst, catching the Spaniard in her shoulder and causing her to miss her shot. The muton felt the lance of energy pass by its waist and roared as it shot back.

No. No. Nononono. Not again. Not fucking again.

Donaldson screamed again. Gabby didn’t make a sound, just slapped a hand against the missing chunk of her neck and half toppled over the tower’s railing before Donaldson grabbed her belt and kept her from falling all the way. Cheng saw the blood stream down her face and hair and her arms fall slack before Donaldson managed to haul her back into the cover of the tower’s railing, screaming that Menace Three was down! Navarro was bleeding out! Gabby was hurt!

Gabby is already dead.

“Oh fuck.”

Cheng looked towards King, saw that she was staring at the facility roof, heard a loud metallic thump and felt it reverberate through the ground beneath them. She turned in time to see a second andy had just dropped from the roof, where another pair of troopers were aiming over the railing.

“I think we need to leave!” Gerard Dekker yelled from over on the left flank, his voice perfectly calm despite the rapidly escalating situation.

One dead, one wounded, heavily outgunned and outnumbered. Cheng agreed. So did the Commander when he spoke into her ear.

“Firestarter’s above you now,” his voice was more strained than she was used to hearing, “Drop smoke and she’ll pull you out of there. Bring Navarro home.”

“Affirmative,” Cheng was proud of how even her voice was, all things considered, “popping smoke. Michelle, help with Gabby.”

King was already up and jogging with her head ducked towards the base of the tower. Cheng pulled a blue taped smoke grenade from her armour, pulled the pin and tossed ten paces away. It sparked and powder blue smoke began spewing into the sky. Five seconds later a half dozen roped dropped from a shadow hovering steadily a hundred metres above, close enough for them to hear the whine of skyranger’s engine as it waited for them to board.

Cheng, Dekker and Leroy were already up and firing at the aliens in wide arcs, trying to keep their heads down as the squad backed towards the smoke. Donaldson gently dropped Gabby’s limp form down into King’s waiting arms, then slid down the ladder, both women running full pelt at the waiting lines where they were pulled up by the skyranger’s powerful winches.

Cheng kept firing all the way back to the skyranger, firing in short bursts wherever she saw movement. She spotted another muton go down, and one of the troopers on the roof pitched forward and splattered on the ground below. They reached the ropes and she kept firing, screaming obscenities about the alien’s mothers and fathers and family and whatever bastards and whores they cared about.

Dekker tapped her on the shoulder and yelled into her ear that she was the last one, then she heard him pulled up towards the skyranger. She kept firing till her magazine ran dry, then wrapped her arm in the second-to-last line and was pulled into the sky with shoulder-wrenching force.

At the top Simmons, the navigator and deck-chief, and King grabbed her and pulled her onto the loading ramp. The last line, empty and unneeded, was reeled in. The ramp closed, the interior emergency light that had been bathing them in its red glow switched off.

Cheng felt the change in inertia as the skyranger’s engines whined louder and it sped away into the night, nearly stumbling backwards.

Gabby was laid out between the seats that lined either side of the skyranger’s hold, a quarter of her neck and the left edge of her jaw blown away by the muton’s shot. Blood everywhere. Her face was slack, lips slightly open, and glassy eyes still opened. No pain there, no surprise, no shock. Just blank, lifeless calm.

Donaldson looked at Cheng, the Scot’s own eyes betraying more shock than Cheng had hoped to see. She seemed right on the edge of panic.

“Gabby died Li.”

“Yes,” Cheng said, “she did.”

What the fuck else was there to say?

Life in the Avenger’s Barracks (9)

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Not at all true1 Comment

Chapter 9: An Overshadowed Reunion

“She looked at me. She looked straight into my eyes. And she smiled.”

***

“Contact front!” Michelle King’s words were quickly drowned out by the roar of her gatling cannon. The trooper in her sights shuddered and spasmed and jerked as the burst of high-velocity magnetically-flung rounds pinned it against a concrete pillar and ripped through its armour. When the body fell out of sight it left a broad patch of orange blood and bits of its guts graffitied against the light grey surface. Fuckin’ gorgeous.

Across the road Karen Nilsen, the Swedish ranger who’d introduced herself by pulling a knife on Gabby Navarro and apparently freaking the shit out of Gerry O’Neill, cackled (honest to god, cackled) as she blew the head clean off a sectoid’s shoulders with her big shotgun-like shardgun. Michelle liked her. Thierry Leroy, the only bloke on this op aside from the VIP they were pulling out of the frying pan, swore colourfully in French and English both when his shot missed the red-armour (an ADVENT officer) that ran around the corner after its mates. Michelle was pretty indifferent towards him, but that was probably because she’d barely spoken twenty words in his direction since she’d joined up with X-Com. She’d need to change that. He seemed nice enough. Little shy, little nervous.

There was a boom that echoed between the glass and steel building-fronts as Emily Adams took out the red-armour with her scoped gauss rifle. Michelle gave her a grin and Emily smiled back. They were near enough age-wise but Emily had a bit more innocent girlishness to her. Michelle respected that, given what she’d heard the American had been through. Shen back on the ship had mentioned she was a survivor of the destruction of Camp Shelby, and even planting IEDs on cars back home Michelle had heard about that. It was a cautionary tale held up by resistance cells all over, “that’s why we don’t all gather in one place.” But Emily was good, kind and friendly with a great southern twang to her accent as she clumsily, obviously, tried to flirt with Shen in engineering.

The VIP they’d been sent to rescue stared about uncertainly. Dr Thulani Bengu had been near enough to Karen to have heard her laughing (cackling like a supervillain) as she put the trooper down and he was looking a little… not pale. His skin was too dark to look pale. What was that word Michelle’s dad had liked using? Ashen. The good doctor (of computer engineering or something) looked ashen.

“Eyes forward! They won’t be the last!” Eva Degroot growled as she ran forward and took up a covering position. Li Ming Cheng did the same. Not surprising given how tight those two were. Then again it was pretty hard to not like Li. It was easy to relax around the tall, muscular, unnaturally lean woman despite her statuesque physique (seriously, it was like the bitch was carved from stone).

As if summoned by Eva’s words another trio of aliens charged up the street, weaving between the parked cars and yelling in their garbled language. Eva swore loudly in Dutch as she spotted a stun lancer with his blade out heading straight for her. She pivoted about and shot him through the throat from about ten metres away, flinging his head and torso back in a spray of blood while his momentum kept him moving forward causing the whole choking mass to skid another metre along the bitumen towards Eva. The stunner was still twitching when Michelle looked away and saw Li turn another of the fuckers into smoking meat with her own mag cannon.

“King! Down!”

Michelle didn’t think, just reacted to the order and threw herself to the ground behind a big red sedan that was parked flush against the side walk. She felt the magnetically propelled rounds fly over her head and shatter the glass window on her other side, heard them slam into the car’s engine block, smelt ozone, burnt plastic, rubber and melted metal. Realised she’d heard the engine block get hit. Scrambled to her feet with the intention of sprinting away but it was too late.

With the aliens had come a shift in how energy was produced and how it was used. One of the biggest switches had been changing car engines from petrol-guzzlers to small hydrogen things that were cheap, clean, efficient, quiet, smooth and – a bit annoyingly given current circumstances – far more vulnerable to stray gun fire.

The sedan she’d ducked behind exploded in a big dramatic fireball that tossed her across the footpath and into something hard and unyielding.

For what could only have been seconds all that Michelle saw was black. Then the feeling in her body returned, painful in some places and numb in others (because yes, that does still count as feeling), and she flicked open her eyes. Well, her right eye at least. Her left was gummy. The back of her head was throbbing, but her left hand didn’t want to move when she ordered it to. Her mouth and nostrils were filled with the taste and smell of blood, her own she realised after a second. Both ears were ringing.

“Fuckin’ fuck me fuckin’ dead,” she couldn’t even hear her own words.

She saw two pairs of boots pounding in her direction and let out a groan. It hurt, but Michelle managed to convince her left eye to squint open and her left arm to help the right push herself off the concrete footpath. A second later strong hands were helping her into a sitting a position and Eva and Leroy filled her vision.

“I’m fine,” Michelle said groggily, couldn’t hear herself speak so yelled them again, “I’m fine!” She saw Leroy pulling out a medkit and she shook her head, “I don’t need it!” Her hearing was starting to come back, leaving just a high-pitched whine in each ear, “I’m alright, just help me stand. Save it, we don’t have time and might need it later.”

Eva was saying something and Michelle focused on hearing whatever it was she had to say, “… your face is a fucking mess you dumb kut,” what the hell was a kut? “so is your arm. You’re most likely bleeding internally. We need to bandage you up now before blood loss or shock finishes the job.”

Michelle was shaking her head, “There’s no time, we’ll do it on Firestarter. I just need you to help me stand. Please. I’ll be alright,” she flashed her grin at them.

Eva looked at Leroy, who looked concerned but nodded. He pulled two syringes from a pouch on his webbing and passed them to Eva. With what looked like a sigh (Michelle’s hearing wasn’t fantastic at the moment so she couldn’t hear it) she stuck the first needle into the Australian’s neck.

“This is to help clot the blood and hopefully keep you from bleeding out,” she threw the first syringe away and repeated the process with the second, “this should keep you moving and help with the pain.”

With another sigh from Eva, she and Leroy pulled Michelle to her feet. She was unsteady for a second – but only a second – before she refound her footing and gave them a nod. Eva looked skeptical but nodded back. She liked to think of herself as the cold, ruthless warrior – distant and aloof. Truth was that she was a big softie who worried about everyone. And everyone loved her for it.

“Let’s get you out of here before you bleed to death.”

***

Emily stood outside the door to Engineering, staring at the grey painted metal and chewing on her nails. It was a bad habit she’d picked up as a kid and dropped as a teenager, but it tended to come back in moments when she was particularly nervous or anxious. Maybe it was something worth telling Doctor Colin Lynch, the scientist who also acted as the Avenger’s resident counselor and psychologist, when she next met him. She’d been seeing him semi-regularly since the time a blob creature that had been disguised as a human refugee had backhanded her through some crates, and he’d become a pretty trustworthy friend through it all.

But if she told him, well, he’d want to know why she was feeling that anxious. What she was doing. Emily didn’t want to admit it to herself let alone Doctor Lynch, but he’d keep pestering her until she told him. He was good at that.

Shit. Then again, Emily wasn’t sure herself. Why was she here, staring at a closed door, one hand balled into a fist ready to knock but too scared to get within striking distance of the door. Chewing absently on the other. Shit. She must look like a fucking coward. Shit. She was a fucking coward. Why couldn’t she just knock? She’d done it countless times before, spoken to the person inside easily and happily while tinkering with the disassembled rifles set out on what had effectively become her workbench. What made right now so difficult?

It was because Emily had something she needed to say, and she was too afraid to say it. Couldn’t say it.

She turned on her heel and walked away from the door.

***

Michelle woke up to clean sheets, a parched throat, pounding headache and a familiar face she hadn’t seen in years, one that didn’t look like it had changed in that time at all. Same dirty blonde hair, same lumpy nose, same mutton chops that led to the same thick mustache (both splashed with ginger), same dark brown eyes that were the same as hers.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” the same voice spoke to her with the same undertones of kindness and sarcasm, “how you feeling?”

Michelle cracked a smile at her brother James, “Like shit,” her head throbbed, “Like I’m hungover. I’m not hungover, am I?”

James grinned and shook his head, “Not from what they tell me. Apparently you passed out on the skyranger on your way back from an op.”

“Sounds right. How long was I out of it?”

“Three days all told.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, well, a car exploded in your face. Dr Tygen was surprised you stayed conscious and fighting all the way to the skyranger. Your insides were pretty scrambled.”

“Shit. When did you get here?”

“Two days ago. The resistance heard you lot were looking for a new combat medic so they mailed me over from the Pacific. Imagine my surprise when I heard that a certain Michelle King was passed out in the infirmary.”

His eyes drifted to her left and he winced a little, but didn’t stop grinning at her. She tried to raise her left arm but found that to be more painful than what it was worth, so she used her right hand instead to inspect the opposite side of her face. She felt bandages covering gaus over most of the left side of her head from the scalp down to her neck. Further inspection revealed that her left arm and shoulder was similarly bandaged up, as was her left hip.

“They’re gonna start calling me Twoface at this rate,” she rasped and looked for a glass of water.

“Nah, your face isn’t too bad. Couple of scratches that’ll leave a few extra laugh lines. The bad cuts were along here,” he traced a line from the edge of his sideburns back above and around his ear, “And your Frenchman-“

“Leroy.”

“-Did a pretty good job stitching them up. Grow your hair longer than an inch and nobody’ll even notice. Your arm’s a different matter. The Frenchman says Dr Tygen did the stitching there so don’t blame him.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, I saw it when they changed the bandages. Tell you right now, I’d much rather the Frenchman stitch me up if I get hurt. Guy actually seems to care about his work. Proper craftsman.”

“I don’t blame you,” she looked at her arm, imagining the crosswork of future scars beneath the bandage, then back at her brother, “What’s wrong?”

“What?”

“Something’s wrong. It’s been, what, three years? Fuck three years now. I may not have seen you in three years but I still know what you look like when something’s wrong. So what is it? Have I got cancer or something?” she chuckled.

James hesitated, and for a second Michelle actually thought that oh shit it really is cancer, then he shook his head.

“They asked me to tell you because they thought it might be easier coming from me. I dunno, I’m not sure if it’s right me telling you.”

“Tell me what?”

***

It was two hours before dawn and the team were charging up a wide two-lane street in a small town, a smell that might have been a damaged sewer or a ruptured septic tank filling their nostrils. Small houses sat behind rusted gates, far too silent for anyone’s liking. Central Officer Bradford had told them the town was one of the rare rural communities that was still populated in this part of Central America, but aside from the trio of troopers they were about to put down they had seen no other sign of life. Where were all the people?

It was a thought Eva Degroot had to put aside as they opened fire on the troopers in front of them. One in red, two in black, standard formation. They squealed and scattered, but were cut down regardless. They needed to be taken down quickly, Menace One was on a time limit to reach the objective and they’d wasted to much time on a cautious dash across town.

Maybe that was why they’d stopped being cautious. Maybe it was the new armour, straight from Shen’s micro-factories, that made them overconfident. It didn’t matter. Leroy was suddenly yelling about multiple contacts and Degroot looked over in time to see Cheng plaster a stun lancer against a car and see Nilsen fire her shard gun at a viper, see the viper twist around and the shards graze off its armour. Then Leroy was firing in a different direction and Degroot turned around to see a muton lumbering behind an old truck that looked like it had been there since before the first war and it probably had and she saw another viper circling past it, the muton growled loudly and she turned back to see it aim its plasm rifle.

Saw it fire.

Felt it hit her in the chest.

***

James looked at Michelle and he looked uncomfortable as he deadpanned the words.

“Eva Degroot was killed in an op this morning.”

“Shit.”

***

The bar was quiet as Louise Seo walked around the table pouring the last of her good rye whiskey into the glasses of the gathered mourners. The only sound was her footsteps and the splash of liquid into the chipped but reliable glassware. When the bottle was nearly empty and the glasses were full she stepped around to her place at the table and raised her own, everyone else following suit. Navneet Banerjee, Cesar Vargas and Gabriela Navarro from the ranks of X-Com’s combat operatives. John Tipene, Simmons, Gertrude Wilders and Kogara Hiro from the Avenger’s crew. Everyone would get a chance to mourn and right now it was theirs.

“Rest easy Eva,” Louise said, a catch in her voice.

Everyone decided that it was all that needed to be said, and together they downed their drinks. Louise produced another bottle and began refilling their glasses. It wasn’t quite the quality of her last bottle of rye but it would do.

“Do we know what they’re going to do for the funeral?” Tipene asked, breaking a long silence after the toast.

“The Commander’s already been through her will,” Louise replied, “she wanted to be cremated, her ashes thrown into the wind from the deck.”

“The Commander,” Navarro added, “talked of a funeral pyre. On the deck in a few days.”

“How very Viking of him,” Wilders replied with a small smile.

“Well we haven’t exactly got a lot of crematoriums handy,” Simmons threw in and everybody nodded agreement.

They sat in silence for a while. Everyone at the table, everyone on the ship, had lost someone. Had lost more than one. For most it was the reason why still fought the aliens instead of merely rolling over and enjoying the gifts of their benevolent dictators. Everyone had lost someone. But it still hurt.

“How did she die?” Wilders asked in a quiet voice.

“The same as everyone else,” Vargas replied, “badly.”

***

The others watched her go down, staring horrified as she was spun about by the splash of plasma fire and tossed heavily onto her stomach, bouncing once and then being still. Navarro and Vargas were swearing from behind their cover. Cheng yelled her name. Then her nickname.

“Venom!”

Then she moved. Slowly, moving one arm and then her knees and then the other arm she growled and pushed herself onto her elbows. Cheng grinned, different to how she usually did, relief clear on her face.

The viper that Nilsen had grazed shot its tongue across the twenty metres between it and Degroot. It caught on her armour and dragged her backwards across the road and rubble until she thumped into its armoured torso. Cheng screamed something incoherent as it wrapped its lithe body around Degroot’s struggling form. The Dutchwoman had a chance to turn her head back towards them. Back towards her friends. Then her face disappeared behind yet another coil. The snake creature squeezed.

Afterwards nobody would be sure whether they heard the crack of bones, the snap of their friend’s neck, or if their minds simply filled in the blank space. When the viper uncoiled Eva Degroot fell to the ground, limp as an armoured pillow.

Cheng screamed.

***

“I th-think she b-blames me,” Karen Nilsen said as she passed the flask over to Doreen Donaldson. Technically the Scot was on duty, but she didn’t think anybody would mind her having a sip or two given the mornings events.

“Who?”

“Cheng. I-I think she blames me. I-I d-didn’t kill the snake th-that k-killed her friend. I-I should have killed it. I m-missed.”

Doreen shook her head, “I don’t think she blames you,” she spoke slowly so that her Glaswegian accent wasn’t too difficult to decipher for the Swede whose stuttering English was at least a second language, “Cheng wouldn’t do that. She’s not the type to hold grudges.”

“How do y-y-you know that?”

That was a good point. She, Karen and Michelle had only been on the Avenger for a few weeks. They hadn’t spent much time with Eva Degroot or Cheng or any of the others. But still.

“Because I do.”

“Y-your wrong. She does hold g-gr-grudges. We all do. I-it’s why we’re here.” Karen shook her head, “You should h-have s-s-seen her. A-A one woman army.”

***

Cheng stood in the middle of an intersection breathing raggedly. Her gun was empty, as was her grenade launcher. There was more than a half dozen bodies splattered around her and three houses were one fire. Some part of her mind was vaguely trying to tell the rest that she was responsible for the bodies and the flames. That she had charged amongst them, spitting curses and death and promises of hell. That she’d killed them all. That she needed to kill more. Another part of her said it didn’t matter.

She turned around and saw the limp form lying on the road. A pile of scorched black armour around a pale face, her Gremlin lying shut down beside her like a faithful hound at its master’s side.

“Eva!”

Cheng let out a sob and charged towards her friend, throwing her mag cannon aside and scooping the boneless form into her arms. Eva’s eyes were still open, her head lolled at an angle it shouldn’t have been able to, her armour was crushed and dented, her limbs twisted underneath.

“No Eva, please don’t be dead! Please!”

Cheng kissed her friend’s forehead and stroked her hair. Rocked back and forth, begging for her to say something, to wake up, to fucking breath. But no matter how hard she begged, Eva just wouldn’t. Cheng rocked back and forth, crying, head buried in her friend’s chest, small, shaking sobs. And that was where she stayed until the skyranger landed to pick them up.

***

It was a hunch, but Michelle remembered overhearing Eva talk to Cheng about meeting in one of the recently cleared rooms on the lower decks a week or two before. No one had seen Cheng in hours and Michelle figured it was worth a try.

The door slid open and Michelle heard the sounds of gunfire and a man’s clipped dialogue, saw lights flashing against the far wall. She crept forward on bare feet, her left arm in a sling and her face still swaddled in bandages. Cheng was sitting in a small incline between support struts, out of view of the door but not the rest of the room, also barefoot with a bottle of Louise’s ship made spirits in one hand and screen playing some sort of movie resting on her knees. She looked up at Michelle but said nothing.

“Can I join you?”

Cheng nodded and indicated the space beside her. Not in an inviting sort of way, mind you. More in an “I don’t give a shit” sort of way. Michelle sat down regardless and joined Cheng watching the screen.

“What are you watching?”

“Die Hard: With a Vengeance.“

“I don’t think I’ve seen it.”

“It was Eva’s favourite film.”

Shit. What do you say to that?

“I’m sorry your friend died.”

Shit. Not that.

“Thankyou. I appreciate it.”

Huh. Well whatever works.

“How are you doing?”

“Good, I guess. No, not good, just… I don’t know.”

“Alright?”

“Yes. That. Alright.”

Cheng was quiet for a moment, staring at the screen as a white guy and a black guy jumped onto a boat, but she clearly wanted to speak.

“She smiled at me.”

“What?” Michelle asked.

“Eva smiled at me. She looked at me. She looked straight into my eyes. And she smiled,” she gave Michelle an incredulous look, “she fucking smiled. I don’t… I don’t think she minded dying. I don’t think she wanted to die, but I think she was ready for it. She has a lot of friends waiting for her on the other side. She smiled at me. She was ready.”

There were tears in the big woman’s eyes.

“Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Not even my brother.”

Cheng nodded, “Thank you.”

“Anytime. Now let’s watch the movie.”

“I’ll start it again.”

“Thanks, I’d like to watch it from the beginning. Did Eva watch this with you?”

“It was her favourite.”