Mega-Primus, Earth
Valkyrie 1
20:00  22/3/2084

"As you all know, my name is Captain Tatyana Akira.  In the field you will refer to me as Captain, if anyone makes or even thinks about making a "queen of the fairies" joke, I’ll turn them into a mind puppet and make them blow off their own foot."

Tatyana sat at the front of the Valkyrie with sergeant Luget, the rest of the craft was filled with rookies.

"As you may have guessed we are en-route to the temple of sanity, owned by the cult of Sirius, and this is the practical part of your basic training."

The rookies were of all different shapes and sizes, one robot, six humans and three half-sectoids.  It felt good for Tatyana to have half-sectoids  here, she knew that X-com needed a larger psionic force and this was a good start.

"The drill is simple; two teams, led by myself and sergeant Luget will enter the temple; we will claim that we have had an alien sighted in the building and we are here to kill it.  The cult will then attack us for suggesting such a thing and we will retaliate, follow though, take all the equipment that we find and then generally set fire to the place on the way out.  Any questions ? No, good."

The temple of sanity loomed out of the fading light, its pure white, fake-marble pillars masking its true purpose, - deception and depravity.

"Arm up, everyone.  We are going in."

1 Minute later
The Temple of Sanity
Tatyana was surprised, there had been no one guarding the doors, Tatyana was unsure if the cult even knew that x-com agents in the building.   Tatyana crept up to the corner and looked around, still no cult.
"This is captain Akira, I’m coming up empty over here, anybody your end?".   Luget’s group were meant to be making their way to the security room, there just had to be someone there.

"Captain, I have two lots of good news, and two lots of bad news."

"Spill it soldier" Tatyana continued to move towards the last couple of rooms.

"The first good news is that I have found the cult, the bad news is that they are all in one room, 25 of them.  The second good news is that we are going to get a lot of equipment from this mission, the bad news is that a lot of it is going to be alien tech … the envoys are here".

Tatyana looked back at the rookies; the only aliens they had seen were in the morgue or in containment, could they be trusted to keep a level head in combat against them? Tatyana was unsure, this would be her first really important decision as a captain, if she was to call back for reinforcements the envoys could leave before they got here.  Tatyana looked around at the rookies and their weapons, plasma pistols and auto-cannons, she and Luget had disrupters.  Still, she thought, with the enemy crammed together in one room, if we use incendiary ammo in the auto-cannons it’s going to be a blast!

Tatyana’s group crept up to the entrance to the colossal cathedral hall, where the aliens and the cult we discussing plans.  Outside the hall two cultists stood guard, Tatyana could tell from the emotions they were emanating that they considered the post the high point of their lives.  "Lets let it end that way" Tatyana thought.

With her mind-bender in one hand and her sword in the other Tatyana crept  out of the darkness, she took over the first cultist’s mind and rendered him immobile.  While the other cultist tried without success to get a response out of his friend Tatyana sprinted up and ran him though.  Tatyana then slipped her mind-bender onto her back hook and drew a plasma pistol from her belt with one motion.  She pressed the gun into the surprised cultist’s chest and fired; with his body muffling the already quiet sound of plasma no sound was heard.
"Take up position" Tatyana’s and Luget’s squads moved up into position most kneeling or falling prone in front of the door; a smaller group of the three half-sectoids and the android had taken up position in a small tunnel below the hall, the field of battle was set, now for the opening move.

Inside the hall the high-priest of sanity sat alone with the Skeletoid captain, unaware of the danger awaiting them.  At the other end of the room the doors slid open and fire rained in.

The cultists were caught by surprise and the mix of plasma, disrupter and auto-cannon rounds cut through them like paper, the incendiary ammo exploded and set most of the seats and many of the cultists on fire.  The aliens, who were further to the back of the room faired better, the Anthropods ducked behind seats and the Skeletoids flew up behind pillars.  The Skeletoid captain roared out a short series of commands and was about to give some more when a Tatyana took over it’s mind.

The Skeletoid’s brain was sharp and angular, built for battle and little else Tatyana made it look down at its hands, almost like pincers they could cut flesh as well as hold a gun. Tatyana could not stand the creatures but they had their uses.  Under her control, Tatyana made it throw its weapon and personal shield into a relatively safe corner of the hall, the Skeletoid looked up as it pulled out a new device, an amazingly powerful explosive, it found itself looking straight into the eyes of the high priest; he had a plasma pistol in his hand but it was shaking. The Skeletoid primed the grenade and let it drop to the ground, Tatyana pulled out of its mind just as the podium, the Skeletoid and the high priest were consumed by a blinding flash of light.

Sensing defeat some of the remaining cultists turned and ran for the tunnel out of the room, they ran straight towards the waiting rookies.

Down in the tunnel the rookies, Romek, Zander, Mikailov and Iwasaki (the android) saw the first cultists drop down into the escape tunnel, the rookies opened up.

Seeing the exodus from the hall Tatyana felt a pang of horror, too many enemies were trying to leave, the rookies in the corridor below would not stand a chance.  Tatyana lined up her sights on a cultist’s face and blew it off with her disrupter, she had to do something.

With a kick of her feet and the flicking of a thought switch Tatyana lifted into the air, she had to get over to the tunnel entrance.

"Luget, with me.  Rookies, stay here, aimed shots only", Tatyana began to fly over the fire and saw a cultist picking his way through the fire. Tatyana started to line up her disrupter on the cultist when she realised that he was carrying a heavy rocket launcher.  The cultist struggled against the launcher’s weight and the battering heat of the fire but was still able to point it towards the flying X-com agent and fire, the shot was very inaccurate but the missile’s targeting systems would correct for this.

Tatyana fired at the cultist, missing.  The missile locked onto Tatyana and changed course, Tatyana flipped off the thought switches in her flying suit and fell the 20 feet into the fire, the missile, unable to cope with this turn careered into the roof and blew off a number of slabs.  Tatyana hit the ground hard and was engulfed in fire.  Damn, Tatyana thought, her flying pack was undamaged by the fall but unfortunately her legs were not, she could feel the fracture in one and the knee of the other was twisted out of its socket.  Opening her eyes Tatyana found herself lying on the burnt body of an Anthropod, on the ground in front of her she saw the Anthro’s disrupter, she picked it up and concentrated on her thought switches and her flying pack hummed into life again and lifted her clear of the fire.  By this time the cultist had reloaded his launcher and was pulling it back onto his shoulder.

The cultist looked up into the eyes of a dragon.

Tatyana flew through the air, her legs trailing behind her, the black eyes burning as hot as the fire, all around her the blaze threw up sparks and smoke, some odd currant pulled the smoke around her and trailed it behind her like the tail of something else, something bad.

The cultist looked up into the eyes of the dragon.

In each hand Tatyana held a disrupter firing continuously, Tatyana’s mental talents were not focused by her mind bender but they still ripped the cultist’s mind into tattered strands before her guns did the same to his body.

Tatyana dropped to the ground next to the corpse and snatched at the launcher, from her prone position in the fire with the blaze and smoke around her she could not see the fleeing enemies but she knew where they were.

The missile tore out of the smoke like some dark thing from the bad place, this was what the last few cultists thought before the shell turned their tight group into just a shower of blood and flesh.

Down in the tunnel the rookies were living on borrowed time, dead cultists and aliens littered the corridor, Zander had long since run out of ammo and had taken an Anthropod’s disrupter, Romek was also running low on plasma shots.  A small fire had started in the corridor and was keeping the cultists back, however the fire did not slow down the aliens much and out of the fire strode a Skeletoid, the faint blue nimbus of a personal shield glowing around it.  The rookies fired and the shield faded slightly but did not fall.  The Skeletoid fired down the corridor, its disrupter beams chewing the covering off the walls.

Zander’s black eyes flashed with the realisation of his special talent, short term pre-cognition.  "Bad feeling" was all he said before he upped and ran, the Skeletoid sneered and pulled an alien grenade from his belt and was about to throw it when Romek overloaded it’s shield and shot it in the gut, the shock of the sudden blast caused the Skeletoid to drop the grenade at its own feet.  It was just as Zander had seen.

The blast from the grenade set off a chain reaction with the ammo on the corpses that littered the corridor causing a wall of fire to sweep down the corridor.  The explosion rolled down the corridor killing the X-com rookies and cultists alike, Zander was far enough to just be knocked over by the blast.  In the main hall the mighty explosion was heard as well as seen, a fissure cracked open the floor, from which fire and debris flew out.

Tatyana rose again from the fire, her black eyes again crackling with fury, she had heard the dying screams of the rookies in the corridor.  Luget scanned for survivors of either side in the tunnel but found none.  Out of the shattered remains of a tiny office two cultists ran, a section of blown-out wall their destination, Tatyana and Luget fired together and the second cultist fell, pieced by many beams.  The lead, and now lone cultist, stopped running when a disrupter beam cut into the wall just in front of his head, he turned to face Tatyana and the rest of X-com and dropped his weapon.  The cultist raised his hands in surrender but was given no mercy, one disrupter bolt tore open his abdomen and a second cut through his face and head.

Their enemies dead, the X-com rookies, now hardened to the harsh realities of battle advanced and used  fire-suppressant smoke grenades to curb the fire.

After a short period of time the only sounds heard were the shuffling of feet and Tatyana Akira, hanging in the air like a ghost, screaming for her dead.

End Six.