Mega-Primus, Earth.
23:51 20/3/2084

Inside the wreckage of its ship the Anthropod looked about, surveying the damage.  It was severe but repairable, however it knew its orders, if there was the possibility of the ship falling into the hands of the enemy it should be destroyed.

The Anthropod made its way to the door and the door opened for it, the harsh air of this evil, alien planet burnt its lungs, "still", it thought "I have a job to do".  As the most experienced Anthropod on the ship it was its job to check the surrounding area for the enemy.

 Looking out of the door, the Anthropod could see only burnt earth and the pathetic green plant life that carpeted the city.  As its gaze moved across the top of a large hill over 50 metres away it saw something, it was a piece of shiny metal.  The Anthropod quickly realised that this was a helmet, of the type used by the enemy; next to the helmet the Anthropod saw another object, a disrupter.  The blast from the disrupter caught the Anthropod between the eyes and cracked open its skull, it fell backwards, back into the ship, behind it another Anthropod stumbled back into cover and the organic doors closed with a thump.

On the top of the hill Tatyana Akira pulled back over the brow of the hill.

"You own me 50 dollars"

Dave Belov crawled forward to get a better view of the door.

"I bet you can’t get the next one"
"Okay, $50 again?"

A few seconds later another Anthropod carefully opened the door and peered out, it took a couple of timid steps and when no shot came it waved its hand for the others.  As soon as they moved into view a disrupter beam flew into the lead Anthropod’s head killing it; the others ran back into the ship still looking for the sniper.  The door opened again and this time a tall yellow being stepped out, it was surrounded by a faint blue shimmer, the two remaining Anthropods loped out, hiding in its wake.

"Damn, a shielded skelly.   Belov, $50 says you can’t get a stun grenade down there".

"No way Tatyana, I owe you too much already"

"Well, in that case we will have to get closer" Tatyana smiled.

"Closer!  There is only two of us, we are just to hold them until help arrives"

"Where is your sense of adventure, anyway we aren’t holding them at the moment."  Tatyana lifted herself up and jumped down the side of the hill, her new flying pack kicked in and she swooped down towards a damaged tunnel.

A lot had changed with the war in the last two weeks, troopers had come and gone, new technologies were being developed or stolen from the raiders, X-com had gained new friends and new enemies.  For Tatyana too,  the war was changing, although she was the most senior officer in X-com she was still a sergeant, as was Belov, Geisler and Luget, however it was no secret that Tatyana was going to be promoted to captain soon.

The aliens were changing too, they were attacking with new and larger ships, and on the ground a new type of trooper was being used, a tall yellow being called a Skeletoid, or skelly for short.  As well as being tougher that Anthropods skellys are able to fly and many carry personal disrupter shields that protect them from attack.

X-com quantum physicists had just recently discovered the basic theory of the aliens "Inter-dimensional" technology and as X-com started using their disrupter weapons the aliens, almost in reprisal had brought out a heavy disrupter.

The biochemists had also made breakthroughs, they had almost perfected a biological warfare weapon, although Tatyana was hesitant about such things the fact they could cut straight through shields with out harming them made them a important step forward.

Back at the crash site Tatyana dived into a small pit while disrupter beams cut the ground behind her, the latest alien attack came at just the wrong time, in a few hours X-com would have disrupter shields as well.

Tatyana sat in the hole for a short time, until disrupter fire from behind her (Belov’s) gave her cover to get to the tunnel.  Back at the ship confused spitters started to wander out cover the nearest hill with spit.

Tatyana jogged quickly through the tunnel until she heard foot-steps behind her, she quickly primed an alien boomeroid (a living alien proximity grenade that would throw itself at whatever was following her).  As she passed an old bin Tatyana dropped the boomeroid in and chuckled; a few seconds later the boomeroid flicked itself out of the bin and exploded, collapsing a section of the tunnel.

Belov knelt at the brow of the hill and carefully shot a spitter; he did not know how long he could hold the skelly as it was carefully advancing from cover to cover.  Tatyana jumped out of  the tunnel in middle distance and threw a stun grenade at the feet of the skelly; as the grenade filled the air around the skelly with stun gas it fired one shaky shot and folded.

Belov blew away the last spitter and waved to Tatyana, only one Anthropod left and it will probably panicking.  Just as he thought this he noticed a faint blue shimmer about five metres away, the shimmer swiftly turned into an angry Anthropod with a gun in its hand.  The Anthropod fired before Belov could raise his gun, cutting into his chest, smashing his left arm and severing his hand, the Anthropod laughed crudely and Belov took the opportunity to flick his disrupter to full automatic and discharge it  into the Anthropod’s chest at point blank range.

At the bottom of the hill Tatyana saw the Anthropod fall and Belov’s sign on her HUD start flashing.

"Are you all right Belov!"

"I’ll live, secure the area"

Tatyana brought herself back to the task at hand, the area was secure apart from one Anthropod.  She ran around to the front of the UFO and saw the doors close behind the last Anthro.  Tatyana pulled her mind-bender out and scanned for stay thoughts; she immediately picked up a very important thought, the Anthropod was going to destroy the ship! Tatyana knew that she had to stop it.  To stop the ship falling into the hands of the enemy was the only thought in the Anthro’s mind so it was easy to track, Tatyana ran into the ship and caught a glimpse of a blue foot as it turned a corner.

Out on the hill Belov shot the dead Anthropod again for luck and started to connect his medi-kit to his chest, invisible aliens! What ever next!

In the Anthropod’s brain the equivalent of adrenaline pumped madly, it had to get to the control room before the enemy got it, but its pursuer was gaining fast.

Hot on the Anthropod’s heels was Tatyana.  She carefully willed a couple of thought switches in her flight pack and with a slight leap took off.  The gain of speed brought her and the Anthro together un-expectedly, and they collided in the middle of a small square room.

In the resultant impact both Tatyana’s and the Anthropod’s guns flew to opposite ends of room, the Anthropod lifted one of its heavy claws and tried to bring it down on Tatyana but she rolled out to one side and pulled her mind-bender out, the Anthropod’s other claw lashed out and knocked the mind-bender across the room.  Sensing the advantage the Anthro leapt forward, Tatyana pushed it to one side and drew a carefully concealed sword out of its place in her flight pack.  It was a very good sword, an antique from the first alien war, forged out of stolen alien alloys for one of the first X-com soldiers.  The Anthro ducked to one side and picked up Tatyana’s disrupter but before it could use it Tatyana cut through its arm and sent it reeling backwards.  Her second strike cut open its chest and it stumbled again, this time leaning head forward.  Tatyana brought up her sword and cut the Anthropod’s head clean off.  For a few seconds after the corpse fell to the floor Tatyana stood in a combat position panting.

"All clear" she said quietly, under her breath.

As Tatyana walked out of the craft another squad of X-com troopers were taking up position outside, Tatyana pulled the headless Anthro behind her and kicked the head in front of her, seeing the troopers she stood the Anthropod upright and then let it fall over.

"What Do you call an Anthropod with its head cut off?"

The rest gave her blank looks so she continued.

"Any thing you want… It can’t hear you."

Every body gave her perplexed, slightly scared looks so she walked up the hill to where Belov was sitting.

"You still owe me $100, Belov.  Hey, don’t we have a meeting to go to!"

Tatyana checked her watch, the weekly assessment of X-com’s performance had just started, Tatyana and Belov had been on their way to it when the aliens had attacked and landed to pin down a damaged escort.

"You will have to go without me Tatyana," Tatyana gave him a quitter look "look, if I had blood…" he thought for a second "and a mouth, I would be coughing up blood by now".

Tatyana made her way to the hovercar she had arrived in, time for the public face of X-com, she thought.

End Four.