Distance, three hundred and seventy five.
        Straight shot, no obstacles interfering.
        Energy riding the green.
        The animal was history.
        The hunter squeezed the trigger gently, relaxing the weight of the weapon against his strong shoulder. A cold breeze floated around him, and he felt the exhilaration of the hunt invade him. The gun bucked imperceptibly and he watched with satisfaction as the animal toppled. He kept watching through the sight, the distance reduced to nothing by the magnification, the expression of pain clearly visible in the creature’s eyes as it clutched a burnt leg. Pain intermingled with fear.
        Fantastic. A perfect crippling shot.
        The animal staggered to its feet and hobbled towards a nearby construction, the promise of safety giving it enough strength to overcome the destruction of its limb.
        The hunter followed the painful progression slowly, the center of the sight unwavering on the target. A few more steps and the shot could not be made.
        "This is no hunting excursion, officer," came an angry shout to the right. "Get over here and give us a hand with this equipment." The hunter glanced over and regarded the mining chief with distaste. Annoyed, he turned his attention back to the weapon’s sights, centered the target expertly and fired once.
        "Coming," he said.

        The transport came over the mining area quickly, the whine of its drives filling the air with noise and dust as it descend vertically and thumped against the ground. The mining operation’s chief stood at a respectable distance and waited for the drives to shut down. The new transports were recent arrivals with the long distance barges and had not yet been modified to support the strange atmospheric conditions on the planet. Unpredictable pressure changes in these parts coupled with fluctuating magnetic fields played havoc on the power containment fields and destabilized the cores. The results usually were catastrophic. The previous week, a barge on a low power approach had suddenly lost gas flow to the core and had crashed spectacularly to the ground, killing all occupants. Since then, Command was enforcing power descents to the surface until a work around was found.
        The door of the transport opened silently and a large officer stepped into the daylight. He straightened, flexing his back and looked around clasping his hands behind his back, clearly waiting for the base chief to trot over.
        "Good day, Sir," he said. The officer drew his stare from the surroundings and as if surprised, glanced down at the junior officer.
        "Command is eager to hear your report. I expect we’ll get right down to business."
        "At once, yes, of course. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the site."
        The area was a mixture of abandonment and frantic activity. A small town used to stand where ruins now littered the landscape, buildings collapsing to the ground or barely standing erect, shells of their past, windows shattered and doors broken. Two avenues ran at right angles from where they stood, rows of shops lining the sidewalks. A small movie theater to the right and the town’s sole gas station at the end. A few land vehicles, burnt some intact others, completed the ghastly scenery. Intermingled with these, several dull gray Mark II Tanks patrolled the area silently.
        A hundred steps away from the central square, a small fenced off area delimited a park, vegetation already unchecked from lack of keeping. Three large boxes the size of a large van sat in the morning cold, sinking slightly into the soft grass. They seemed very heavy, much heavier than their size suggested, but they shook slightly every now as if a great internal effort was underway.
        "The new extraction modules," explained the base chief. "Smaller and more powerful than the previous model but..."
        "But, you’re behind schedule on the deliveries," cut in the higher rank.
        "Uh, yes. The gravitational problem that’s affecting the transports also seems to destabilize the force generators and we have to be careful." Yes, he’d heard of last week’s incident where an extraction mod had blown sky high, killing a dozen operators in the process.
        "Continue," he ordered.
        "We’ve installed the main depot over there." The higher rank turned and spotted the massive structure a distance away. Good thinking. If another module blew no sense in putting the recollected mineral in peril.
        Which of course means we’ve had to install several power amplifiers along the way."
        "Did I come down for a site tour?" asked the senior officer tautly.
        "No, of course not, sir." The mining chief pointed to a ground transport. "It’s a short ride."
        Minutes later, the vehicle pulled up in front of a squat building. A group of soldiers guarded it carefully.
        "Military installation," said the superior officer.
        "Correct, sir. Small operation. I believe they were using it as a depot for their fighter base."
        "What base?"
        "Three parx to the north."
        The superior officer turned slowly. "I’m unaware of such base."
        "Well, it’s very small, only apt for the smaller fighters. The larger bombers didn’t have enough space to lift off." He paused. "It was in my report last week."
        The officer gave the mining chief a dangerous look. "Continue," he said.
        "If you please," he continued in softer tones, aware that the situation was becoming complicated. "We need to enter." The group crossed a door and descended a long winding ramp, past a couple of very solid doors and reached a large storage room. Inside, double metal racks lined the length of the room. On them , rows and rows of missiles, larger than the average man, gleamed menacing in the soft lighting.
        "Isotope 235 torpedoes," said the mining chief.
        "Are you sure," breathed the superior officer.
        "Without a doubt, sir. We ran double checks on all of them."
        "These are very dangerous weapons." A single torpedo could kill all life in a radius of several parx, but the ensuing radiation would consume every Kraal for dozens of parx. The officer turned to the mining chief.
        "The area is absolutely secure?"
        "Yes, Sir."
        If only the terrans had know the awesome capabilities of the weapons at their disposal or at least the terrible effects it had on a Kraal’s metabolism. He shuddered at the thought.
        "Take me to the transport," he ordered. "I must contact Command."

        Sergeant John Wilkins cursed and unstuck the bush that stubbornly clung to his sleeve. A thorn ripped the material and stung into his arm. He cursed again and looked around. The rest of the team was practically invisible, save for the two men dragging the reel of reinforced jacket fiber optic cable. He picked a map from his pocket and checked it carefully, using a crosshaired visual compass to located a nearby hill. He checked the heading, cross referenced with a meandering river down in the valley below and decided he was close enough.
        This was a bitch without GPS. Fucking back to Columbus navigation techniques.
        "OK, guys. ‘Nother one right here."
        A second group of men lumbered up with a heavy crate and extracted a small drab green shoe-sized box from it, ran a strand of cable through it and buried it into the ground.
        Twenty miles to go. Man, this was going to take forever. It was definitely a bitch. Advancing for miles without proper protection, laden with heavy gear and with the fear of discovery constantly among them. The had to stop every so often to check bearings and sight for enemy positions.
        Northern California was exceptionally cold this year. Never been colder than summer in California, went the song. Well it ain’t summer, he thought, but I sure as Hell’ve never been colder. The valley stretched below them and that was where they were heading, a fiber optic relay station that supposedly was intact and had served as a backup connection site for satellites to and from Silicon Valley.
        The group of men trudged forward, paying out miles of cable behind them.
        "Sarge," called a voice from behind. "Tell me again how I fuckin’ volunteered for this."
        "You didn’t asshole," he said tiredly. "Just keep your trap shut, OK?"
        We lost the damn war, wiped out completely and some idiots just didn’t want to give up. I got news for you bloody Major Sheldon, we got our collective butts kicked into hyperspace. But the crazy bitch thought it was a great idea to hook their useless communications gear to the national fiber optic line. And he was ‘voluntereed’. Yipee-kai-ei. It wasn’t that he missed his parents or his loser wife much. They could rot for all he cared, but baseball season was definitely over. Probably the whole dipshit world was kaput.
        "Sarge!"
        He turned sluggishly. "What now..." The soldier was pointing at the sky.
        "Flyer."
        Wilkins’ reaction was pretty decent all things considered. He hit the ground and then shouted: "Everybody down, damnit." Bloody UFO. He looked up and spotted the black dot moving towards them. Please don’t let it discover them. Please don’t be using thermals. Please fuck off. The minutes passed and so did the alien craft.
        Four hours later the group of men reached the relay station. It sat on a small hill, a small white building surrounded by a fence.
        "Lonnie, get over here," he called, as they crouched behind a small rise. A young man crawled forward. "Go check the station out," he said nodding towards the construction.
        The soldier pulled a face. "You nuts, man?"
        "Listen, shithead," snarled Wilkins. "Get your black ass over there and check it out ‘fore I skin you."
        "Alone? Give me a break, Sarge. At least give me some help." He had a point there.
        "OK, OK. Uh, " he turned and surveyed the group. "Pat, you go with him." A lanky figure with less then regulation length hair did a quick double take. But he was the less likely to complain.
        "Shit, Sarge. You know I’m from communications."
        "S’right. That’s why you get to survey the area. Now move, both of you."
        Grudgingly the two men crept, crawled and raced forward, Wilkins expecting to see a hot plasma blast hit them any moment. He was slightly surprised when they reached the building and entered it through the front door. Not exactly CT operations, but it got the job done. Lonnie stepped out and waved.
        "OK, boys. Let’s move."

        The screen flickered on and a familiar whir filled the air as the chip’s ventilator revved to speed.
        "All right," exclaimed the young man. After the gas attacks the power had lasted for two months before the computers at the central billing department of the Electricity Board had noted that payment of bills was not forthcoming and had closed accounts all over the county.
        Upstate New York had been left without electricity not by the alien menace but by the damned electric company. Go figure. A small petrol powered generator hummed loudly downstairs supplying enough juice to fire a few heaters, dim lighting and the kitchen stove. Several people huddled about the warmth and shivered uncontrollably. A couple heated something in an electric oven, the aroma filling the room.
        "Mike," called one of the people. "Dinner’s almost ready."
        But he couldn’t care less, mesmerized as he was with the loading logo on his laptop. Eagerly he fired his Internet connection and waited for the modem’s crazy chirps to start. Please, he begged. Screee, blip. The building was pretty much intact, and kept tidy by the numerous people that huddled inside. The few that had survived the gas, God knew for what reason, had gravitated together for protection and companionship. However, hundreds - no, thousands had died. The campus of town’s two universities were littered with corpses, already decayed or scavenged. His parents, his friends, his family all dead.
        But some had survived. He wasn’t sure he preferred being alive.
        ‘Verifying user and password’ popped up on the screen.
        Goddamn, he thought. They built the net to withstand a nuclear blast it’s actually working!
        ‘Logged in at 28.800 bps.’
        Mike clicked the IRC icon and watched the familiar program load on screen. He then selected a familiar EFNET server and logged in. Holy crap, he was in! Next he typed /list for the channel listing to appear and waited impatiently drumming his fingers on the table.
        "Mike? You want dinner?" came a voice from behind.
        "Yeah, yeah. Be right there," he said loudly.
        The list came up on screen and he scrolled down. All channels seemed empty. A feeling of desperation washed over him. Come on, there have to be other survivors. Can’t just be us.
        There!
        Channel #resistance, with eight people. He clicked the mouse and entered with his old nick.
        Gandalf was back on the net.

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X-COM: UFO Defence is copyright 1996 by Microprose Software, Inc. All rights reserved.