The Hammer and the Anvil - An Xcom Short Story
Just a short story I was inspired to make after playing a little xcom.
His hands were shaking, very slightly, but still shaking. He gripped his sniper rifle too hard, his muscles tensed, but that was only for a couple of seconds before he realized what he was doing and fought it off. The snow leopard shook his head slightly - the same kind of slightly that seemingly wouldn't leave his arms no matter how much he tried to will it away.
"Dammit," He growled silently to himself. With a heavy sigh, he rested his rifle down next to him on the tiled floor of the balcony. The railing stacked with pieces of rubble he managed to collect throughout the mostly ruined apartment building - if it could be called a building anymore. Most of it was stone and metal, just like the rest of the former city. Suddenly, his radio buzzed, gently vibrating the bones of his inner ear so as to ensure an enemy couldn't hear the call. The snep brought a hand up to his left ear and tapped it twice, accepting the transmission.
"Hey Rike, everything okay?" It was his sister. Hearing her slightly deep voice managed to kill much of the anxiety; he remembered that he wasn't alone here, in the heap of death and silence that was once Edinburgh.
"Y-yeah Mara, I'm... well, honestly no, I feel like throwing up,"
That got a gruff chuckle out of her, which made him smile.
"You can do this rookie, remember we're all here," she said.
"I umm... I just." His voice trailed off, and as he collected his thoughts, another voice cut into the private transmission and startled Rike.
"Hey, keep your radios open and set to universal at all times!"
Rike's fear and anxiety came right back and with a vengeance.
"Oh, uh, I... I'm sorry commander!" he stammered madly, inciting another chuckle from his sister on the other end.
"Sorry about that commander, just tryin' to help the new boy out a bit,"
"You can do that on universal," the commander said, his voice having cooled.
"Aye aye, sir." a soft burst of static sounded Mara's exit, and Rike quickly followed, reaching to the device in his ear and tapping it four times.
"Heh, so the rookie has decided to grace us with his presence once again!" said a jovial but gruff male voice, a bull, Jack.
"Yeah... sorry," Rike picked his rifle back up, resting it on the slightly mangled railing of the balcony. He peered through his scope down to the street below.
His eyes widened, he saw something, he saw something! Both a tense anxiety and a new excitement came over him and he once again gripped the rifle too hard before once again admonishing himself and relaxing slightly.
"I-I see an enemy... two- no three... four... six! I uh, see six!"
"The satellite view is acting up a bit, report, what are they?" the commander asked.
"Umm, they're aliens, sir,"
The commander sighed. "Yeah, I expected that. I mean, what type are they? Sectoids, thin men?"
"I umm... not sure, sir,"
Another sigh.
"Describe what they look like,"
"Well, some of them walked off and I can't see them anymore, I can only see four right now. Three of them are tiny, big heads and stubby fingers,"
"Sectoids," Mara chimed in. "Definitely,"
"And the other looks like a person... kinda. Looks like a male wearing a blue suit, he's a monkey, but like, looks stretched out!"
A hint of a laugh showed itself in the commander for the first time in the mission.
"Thin men."
The commander issued orders to the scattered out operatives to slowly advance, but Rike wasn't listening, he was focused solely on the aliens, his breathing grew heavy as he focused on them simply standing on the street, seemingly conversing next to a pile of rubble and a broken stop sign. Another alien entered into his field of vision, it seemed to be a sectoid, but this one was a little different than the others. His wrinkled and pinkish head was larger, it seemed to glow with a reddish-orange light, much like its eyes.
"Uh, guys. I see this one Sectoid, he looks different, big head and glowing,"
"Likely a commander," the commander replied.
"Rike, do you have a shot?"
"I...."
"Rike, this is important. If you take him out then that'll make things a lot easier for everyone else. If you miss, you alert the enemy to your location, and likely to your teammates as well,"
"I think I see them, I could sneak up-and-,"
"No," The commander cut Jack off. "This is the 'new boy's' hit,"
Jack fell silent, and the commander continued: "Rike, do you have a shot?"
"I, yes commander, I have a clear one,"
"Take it." With that order, the radio fell silent on all fronts.
His hands were shaking again. His muscles felt tense, he tried to hold his rifle steady but had very limited success. He placed a finger on the trigger, holding it there.
*Fuck* he mentally screamed, it looked like the alien commander was walking away. He had to shoot now, now or he would lose his shot!
Panicked and not noticing that he was death-gripping his weapon, he pulled the trigger with as much force as he could manage. It missed, hitting one of the lesser sectoids' shoulder.
"Fuck!" He growled, letting off another two rounds. But by then they had scattered, taking cover behind the numerous piles and ruins.
"Shot missed, the target is still standing!"
The sound of bullets and the aliens' plasma weapons firing over the radio buzzed in Rike's ear.
"I'm pinned down," Jack yelled. "A bunch of thin men just came out of nowhere!"
"Jack, see if you can keep their attention and not die. It looks like all they're doing is firing, they aren't trying to flank you, yet. Mara, head down patter street and turn left at the cafe there, that'll bring you to their right side!"
Mara and Jack responded with a hearty "yes sir!"
"Rike," the commander said
"I'm sorry!" he practically wailed.
"You can be sorry afterward. All the commotion with Mara and Jack should draw the alien forces, I need you to head straight down, Keep heading down until you find an empty car lot, go left. You'll Be right behind the enemy."
The commander's shouting calmed down, and he spoke coolly, in a manner that did help Rike's worries, even if just a bit. He couldn't help but admire such control over his emotions.
"Yes, Commander!"
--
The radio constantly buzzed back and forth with reports and orders. From what Rike listened to, the situation was more or less stalemate with neither his side nor the aliens doing more than making holes in the concrete. But Rike couldn't focus on that, he had a job to do, he had to make up for missing that shot. He ran down the street, his boots clanking heavily against the ground. He could see it, the the empty lot, surprisingly clean considering the rest of the city. His chest hurt and his legs ached, but that didn't matter. He made a hard turn left past a downed streetlamp, nearly tripping over it.
--
By the time he reached his destination, he was totally out of breath, gasping for air and a thick coat of sweat covered his fur and dripped onto his military armor.
But he made it. When he realized he could see the backs of many of the thin men and sectoids - all shooting like mad below them as they stood around an elevated and crumbled statue - he threw himself behind a dumpster, cursing when he scrapped his bare elbow on the ground.
Despite that minor annoyance, he once again raised his rifle, ready to fire into the enemy, when he remembered he had something far better for clearing a room. His paw fumbled to his belt pulling a frag grenade off of it, his only one. He held it high, setting his gun up next to the stalwart dumpster. He lurched forward, adrenaline pumping through him. He screamed into the radio "Fire in the hole!" alerting the enemy to his position. But by then it was too late for them, the grenade had already left his hand. He prayed to God that it would land true, and it did. It hit the single leg that once made up a whole statue, bouncing off of it only to explode during its journey to the ground.
For a second all was quiet, just the sound of crumbling debris and the sight of green-mucus-like blood and body parts laid all over the place.
"E-everyone okay?" Rike said in the radio, sprawled out on the ground with one hand over an ear.
"Yeah," said Jack. "Just fucking shook is all."