Chronicle 1, Episode 1, Chapter 8

The Interstell Chronicles

Episode 1 - War from Above

Chapter 8:-


Matthew Hunter turned to Cubber as the rest of the soldiers and technicians filed from the room and spitted him with a stare of mock hatred. "Thanks for the demonstration Cubber."
Cubber smiled. "I could have easily demonstrated without the armor!"
Matthew returned the smile and shook his head slightly. "I’m going to have to watch you closely aren’t I?"
Cubber just smiled even more and began collecting the items he brought with him to the briefing. "Just make sure you look after the suit."
Matthew started at the phrasing Cubber had used. He stared almost dumbfounded for a moment. "You mean that this is my one?"
"Sure. Tell you what, I’ll give you something to try out on your next mission as well." Cubber picked up the weapon that had been used to shoot at him only moments ago and handed it over. Matthew took it by the barrel, flipped it in his hand so he held it by the butt and placed it in the holster built into the armor low on his right hip.
"You look the part now son." Cubber stood a few feet away and looked him up and down, admiring his handy work. "But that is not all." From inside the metal chest that had contained the armor, he withdrew a two foot long metal object. It looked vaguely like a rifle. It had blue trapezoidal panels, the same colour as the armor, broken up by thin silver lines. A handle and trigger assemble was at the rear end, and three quarters of the way along, was a padded grip that was molded around the barrel. Mounted across the top was a sighting assembly, and a small raised section displayed information of the current power charge of the weapon.
Cubber cradled it carefully as he handed it over and Matthew gripped it by the handles. "it’s one of the laser rifles that the commander talked about. We only have three, but with the success of the pistol in testing, we talked and decided to give this a real test in the field. It operates on the same principle as the pistol, but has the extra power needed to punch through Muton bio-armor at range."
Matthew looked down the barrel as he tracked it across the room. "I don’t know what to say."
Cubber smiled. "Just promise me that you will bring it all back in one piece! Oh that reminds me!" Cubber reached back into the case and withdrew a two foot metal blade. Matthew immediately recognized the blade that he had appropriated from a Muton back in America, but now it had a shortened and thinner blade. Cubber moved up to Matthew again and slid the blade down into a catch that held it on his left hip. "We did a little re-engineering of this thing and we liked the idea of you lot having something more substantial than a knife to fall back on in case you get into close combat with the Mutons again."
Suddenly, a klaxon sounded from the recessed speakers, announcing a priority message. "Multiple Hostile contacts detected entering atmosphere. All intercept pilots report to launch stations. All members of assault teams one, two and three report to armory."
Before the message had finished, Matthew was sprinting up the stairs to the door at the back of the room, with Cubber yelling after him messages of encouragement. "Go get them son! And remember you promised to bring it all back in one piece!"
Skidding round the corridors, more of the soldiers crowding towards the armory and collecting their gear. Already being in one of the prototype armor suits and having one of the laser pistols on him, Matthew just grabbed his medical pack, a browning 9mm for backup firepower and slung the laser rifle so it caught on the holding catches mounted down the back of the armor, before running to the lift that was dedicated to taking the troops from the armory to the Sky Ranger hangar one floor up.
Jamie, standing behind him punched him playfully on the plate that protected his spine. "Got a few new toys Matthew?"
Howie Gardener sneered at him from across the lift. "Why did they give that stuff to him. We should have gotten it before a civilian!"
Matthew turned and gave him a lopsided grin. "Your just jealous because I’ve got a bigger gun!" That caused Jamie Lora and Dirk to snigger.
Bursting out the lift surrounded by his fellows, they charged up the lowered ramp at the rear of the Sky Ranger. Commander Ian Finch was the last up the ramp, jumping the foot that it had begun to raise when most of the team was aboard. The jarring of the ship signaled the movement of the lift platform the plane sat on rising to the surface through the overhead blast doors.
The commander walked down middle of the plane, looking down to either side to check on the rest of the team as they strapped into the seats along either side of the fuselage.
"Listen up. The Interceptors are outbound to catch a UFO detected moving towards Britain from over the Atlantic. This should be a standard Intercept recovery operation. Begin final equipment checks."
Matthew nodded his understanding along with the rest of the crew. A standard recovery up was a little more complicate than it sounded. It usually involved two of the assault teams. One would create a perimeter to keep out any local bystanders, while a second team moved in to investigate the landing sight. The fact that the interceptors should have engaged the UFO first meant there was a good likely hood that the landing site would be little more than a crater containing shot up UFO components.
The danger there lay in harmful materials that might have leaked out of the wreck. But there was also a chance that the Interceptors did little more than force the UFO to ground more or less intact. In which case, there could well be some or all of the aliens still alive inside. That turned the mission into an assault, and that invariably meant casualties for the soldiers involved.
This prompted Matthew to look down at his body encased in a suit of armor made from the same materials that the UFO’s hulls were made of. It was at that point that he noticed many of his fellows looking at the suit he was wearing with something like professional envy in their eyes. Even though the only reason he was wearing it was that he had not had time to take it off. The fact that he had a laser pistol strapped to his hip did not help the image, but he knew that when the mission was over, they would likely rib him about it in good humor, despite the fact that he had only recently stopped being the outsider of the group.

It took half an hour for the supersonic Sky Ranger to cross the length of Britain and approach the UFO engagement zone. The commander had been listening to the radio during the entire trip in order to keep him up to date with the developments.
"Listen up! The interceptors took a beating from the UFO, but have forced it down. They say that it is twice as big as anything they have deployed before, and it has gone down intact. This is now an assault mission. Steve and Hamish, load up with the grenade launchers. Matthew, load up with extra ammunition for them!"
Matthew undid his restraints harness and moved to the reinforced equipment lockers either side of the doorway to the cockpit. Undoing the catch, the door swung open and he grabbed on to the edge to stop from being thrown by the air turbulence. With the other hand, he undid the straps of the grenade launchers and tossed them across the cabin to Steve and Hamish. He also tossed over two bags filled with extra grenades which they slung over their shoulders while they checked the status of the weapons. Matthew turned back to the locker and took out one of the bags and used a pair of hooks on it’s back side to hook it onto the back of the belt encircling his waist.
Re-securing the locker, he staggered over to his seat and locked his arm round the restraints. The Sky Ranger lurched again and the commander leaned from his seat to stare out the front of the plane.
Rain lashed the screen, and winds caught the plane causing the pilots to fight the controls. An sane person would not fly near supersonic into a thunder storm. Let alone try to do a vertical landing in one.
Matthew watched as Dimitry Samousensko fought to stop a particularly strong gust from tossing the plane into a tall tree as they descended towards the other Sky Ranger that team one had taken on ahead.
Dimitry yelled from the cockpit over his shoulder. "Landing in one minute!" Around him, the rest of the soldiers were undoing their straps and clutching their weapons tightly in their left of right hands while they held onto the undone restraints with the other.
"Team one reports heavy fire coming from the tree line, off to the right. They have wounded." Matthew could see through the viewport green beams lance out across the ground to impact all around the other Ranger. "It’s too hot down there to stay!"
The commander looked grim at Dimitry’s announcement, and in seconds, one of the green beams pierced the side of the other Ranger and took out part of the wing on the other side, spraying sparks and molten metal over the troops trying to get cover from the relentless alien fire. "We cant leave them to deal with that alone! Do a five second turn around and get back in the air. Call in an airstrike on the tree line!"
Dimitry nodded and refocused on his controls and steepened their descent. The commander turned back and explained the situation in a few short words and the rest of the team stood and grabbed onto the overhead railings and moved towards the rear of the plane.
The ramp began to open, causing the rain and wind to howl in through the widening gap. As soon as the ramp was fully lowered, it provided a spectacular view of the explosions along the tree line as he humans and Aliens exchanged fire.
Overhead, just visible through the lashing rain, Matthew could just make out the running lights of one of the fighters making an attack run. In seconds, two streaks speared out from the underside of the wings and sped to the ground on a trail of fire.
One of the missiles caught the branches of a tree as it descended, causing the leaves to smolder in it’s passing. When the missiles speared the ground, they both ignited sending up a twin globes of fire that ate out the foliage.
By then, the Ranger was low enough and the team ran out the open ramp and hit the ground. Matthew followed, dodging to the left behind Tyler Dowan as he raked the fire from his AR-15 rifle over nearby bushes.
Green fire erupted from the bushes once more, though it was not as dense as before. Beams sliced either side of them as they dived into a ditch that ran across the field about fifty yards from the edge of the tree line.
Black smoke from the fires in the tree drifted across Matthew as he hunkered down in the mud. Back east when they had taken off, it had been quite sunny. But here, in Cornwall, the thunder clouds obscured everything, and the smoke only added to the problem.
Poking the upper half of his body above the edge of the ditch, Matthew stared down the sights of his laser rifle. He could see some movement in the bushes, but there was no way to tell if that was caused by the wind or by the aliens, or even advanced members of the XCOM force.
A green explosion on the rear side of the trench a little further down, sprayed earth and small stones around, causing many of the soldiers sheltering in the trench to hunker down covering their exposed skin and protecting the areas of their heads not covered by their standard issue British army helmets.
More explosions rippled the ground in front of the trench causing more debris to rain down. Matthew reached up and pulled down the visor over his upper face and continued to track his weapon across the tree line, that was now well ablaze from the explosions of the ariel attack.
Another series of explosions blossomed behind the trench, causing the air to be filled with smoke and falling debris. The wind caught most of the smaller pieces, coalescing them into a torrent of small bullets. The only saving grace was the rain. As it continued to persist, the ground was rapidly becoming waterlogged, absorbing a significant amount of the explosions. It was however a curse as the fields behind the trench were draining into it and within a minute, there was a constant stream of water sloshing around ankles up and down the ditch.
Another series of explosions, these even closer to the ditch lit up the night and the realization that the next volley could well land in the ditch and kill his fellows, Matthew knew they had to either attack, or retreat.
The first rule of warfare, never do what your enemy expects. Matthew put his foot up on the side of the trench and gave a command that could spell his doom.
"Charge!" The first part of the word was definitely recognizable English, but as he propelled himself up over the top, it turned into more of a war cry, as he made a headlong rush towards the trees.
Without looking back over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, he really didn’t want to know. If he was alone, he was as good as dead. If others had followed, some of them were as good as dead. Definitely a no win situation.
Green streaks blasted out of the tree line. Most came from the edges were there was a four foot hedge row. The aliens had been forced to either retreat behind the fire, or move up to the edge of the woodland so as not to get roasted.
Matthew veered to the right to attack them head on. He brought his laser rifle up to his waist and pulled the trigger, firing as soon as the capacitors would recycle. Green energy washed out of the trees, answers by a lone streak of yellow, and Matthew hopes sank fast.
Suddenly, the sound of gunfire erupted from behind him. The massed bullets sliced into the hedge line a chainsaw. Branches snapped as the were cleaved by bullets and leaves flew into the rain filled air.
Bursting through the hedge, Matthew fired repeatedly at the Mutons that were rushing up from further in the woodland. One yellow laser blast caught a Muton dead center of it’s chest. The neat entry hole had a matching one on the back, and black fluid, too dark to be human blood gushed out the wound as the creature fell forwards to squirm on the ground.
Searing heat glanced across his thigh and slowed his headlong motion. Spinning round to face the rear he pulled the trigger out of sheer reflex. The yellow bolt lanced out at the Sectoid standing behind him and stabbed deep into one of it’s large black eyes. The eye burst like a puss filled boil, spilling a transparent viscous fluid in a spray across ten feet.
It seemed to happen in slow motion. Watching the short gray alien drop backwards, Matthew caught a glimpse of the fire raging through the eye, showing off the exit wound at the back of the skull.
But he had not lost his forward momentum, despite being faced the other way. Catching his foot on a tree branch that was sticking out the ground. Matthew fell backwards. Pain blossomed across his back, despite the armor, as he landed. The force of the impact was enough to cause him to loose the grip on his rifle, which flew off into a thicket of brambles.
Definitely not a good place to be. Lying on your back with out a drawn weapon in a very hostile combat zone, tends to shorten a persons life expectancy to near zero.
Reaching down to his waist, Matthew pulled the Browning from his right hip, while rolling over on to his left and pushing up from the ground. A Muton stood towering over him, bringing it’s bladed weapon to bear. Without even thinking, Matthew stood and tucked the Browning under the aliens chin and pulled the trigger.
Since the standard armor piercing rounds had little effect on the Mutons green bio-armor, XCOM had bought out a specialist bullet, courtesy of a major American weapons manufacturer. The bullets were tipped in tungsten, mounted on a secondary chemical charge. When the bullet impacted something, the dense tungsten tip would penetrate, but also set off the charge by compressing it. The end result was spectacularly gruesome, as the bullet exploded inside the target.
The bullet plowed through the Mutons jaw, and blew the entire back of the head away, raining it’s black blood, filled with the remains of gray matter across ten feet of ground. The eyes were shredded apart by the shrapnel of the bullet, causing more blood and gore to spray from all the holes in the face.
The shouts of the wounded and dying collapsed in on Matthew and he staggered to lean up against a tree. The pain in his leg was subsiding, and a quick glance showed that the alloy armored panel covering his thigh was glowing cherry red from the heat, but cooling rapidly.
One of the team members from the other squad, his name tag on his left breast said Lieutenant Henson, rushed up.
"You okay?"
Matthew went to speak, but his throat was suddenly very dry, so he nodded instead. The medic frowned but moved off to help see to the other wounded. The sounds of combat further in the woods echoed through the small clearing. Matthew shook his head to clear his mind. Time to go back to work!
Jogging through the trees, alien corpses were littered across the ground, spaced out with XCOM troops at frighteningly regular intervals. Most had massive blast holes from the alien energy weapons, some had limbs missing, all but vaporized in the intense heat, leaving burnt tissues. Bones broken in a split seconds as the tendons flash fried so fast that they broke their attached bones.
Movement off to his left showed the rest of his team huddled behind trees cowering from concentrated enemy fire. Some tree boles, easily over 100 years old were splintered apart by some of the more powerful shots. The weaker ones from the enemy pistols simply taking out great lumps of wood and setting them on fire.
One shot grazed Tyler Dowan across the side of his face. He fell away from his cover screaming impossibly loud. His cheek had been all but cooked with a long furrow in it that was oozing partially cooked blood, and his hair was on fire.
Jamie Aston had been sheltering behind the same tree pulled off her combat jacket and jumped on top of Tyler, trying to get his hands out of the way to cover his head in the jacket and smother the flames.
Another green energy discharge flared in the false light given off by the fires and the green beams. Tyler thrashed out to his right, causing him to knock Jamie’s arm out from under her causing her to fall, just as the beam passed over them and passed over her backside too close for comfort. She gave a startled yelp of pain from the heat, but grabbed Tyler and dragged him behind a fallen tree bole.
Seeing the situation, Matthew saw red. Anger flushed his face and caused his muscles to tense. He suddenly knew that he could kill them all, no regrets, no problems. He stalked forward in clear view, Laser pistol appearing as if by magic in his right hand, Browning still clutched in his left.
Pulling the trigger of the Laser pistol, a yellow beam stabbed out competing with the green beams to chase away their sickly colour. The beam stabbed through a Sectoid’s eye and continued losing little strength to stab into a tree where it blasted a small crater filled with a guttering flame, while showing burning splints of wood about. The Sectoid had not even finished falling to the ground, and already the laser pistol was pointing at another alien.
The browning flashed and echoed amongst the trees, causing it’s special load of bullets to explode when they hit anything hard enough.
One explosion blew the arm off a Muton, causing it to reel away to write on the ground. A second shot blew a hole the size of a melon in it’s chest, causing its version of a stomach to leak putrid contents over the ground.
Another shot took an alien that Matthew had not seen before right in it’s middle. It look so much like a snake, but six feet tall, with another four feet trailing behind it. It’s orange skin had fire blackened patches, and did not seemed bother by the fact that it’s tail was sticking in a bush that was still on fire. It had a paler orange ribbed ‘stomach’ that seemed to run the entire length of the body, right up to the jaw of the head. Two sets of fangs, top and bottom gleamed at the tips with poison.
The bullet pierced about four feet up from the ground, and literally blew it’s middle apart. Strange looking organs spilled out, shredded by the bullet shrapnel, and the gleam of gray bone could be seen through the wound that was easily a foot across.
But the alien still kept moving forwards, vestigial arms clutching a damaged alien rifle to it’s front. The laser pistol fired again, putting a neat hold in between the all too human eyes, and the alien slumped to the ground glassy eyed and unmoving.
Movement off to the other side and a yelled warning from one of his comrades and Matthew spun fast to his right, while ducking down to end on his knee, both guns pointed away, arms straight. Six Mutons were stalking forwards, two with their heavy rifles, the rest with those four foot blades drawn.
One of the ones with a rifle was covering the flank where the rest of the XCOM troops could be heard moving up. The other was tracking his rifle down to correct the shot that was supposed to take Matthew’s head off except he had ducked.
Laser pistol and browning fired together. The laser pistol put a neat hole in the bio armor that was a darker green than the other encountered so far. But the Browning’s shell exploded on the surface of the bio armor causing it to blacken but with no other appreciable damage and the Muton kept coming.
Matthew fired again with laser pistol repeatedly in the same spot. The bio armor blistered and then the alien staggered as black blood splattered out of the wound. Matthew re-aimed the Browning and pulled the trigger. The special bullet entered the hole that the laser pistol had made and exploded. More black blood blasted out the wound like a water cannon. The bio armor may have been stronger, but one the bullet was inside it did it’s job and killed it from the inside out. A look of horror crossed it’s face as it fell forward like a tree being felled.
Matthew pulled the triggers again and again at the other Muton with the rifle. The laser strafed across its chest at an angle leaving small blackened pits with little flames across it’s front. The Browning tracked up from its groin till it reached it’s head a removed the face. Permanently!
The other Mutons moved forward faster, and the Browning clicked on empty. There was no way that Matthew could reload it one handed so he cast it aside and drew the cut down version of the blade he had on his left hip.
Matthew got to his feet and back-pedaled to give him more firing time with the pistol, but the Muton’s powerful legs allowed them to move faster. When the first swing of a blade came though, another of their number was lying on the ground, clutching its ruined face and trying to keep its fractured skull together to stop its brains from spilling out.
The first blow Matthew blocked high and to the right, but being an amateur with blades, he had it in the wrong grip. The blow landed on the blade with all its massive force, almost making him wrench his wrist and drop the blade.
The second blow was aimed at his torso and the screech of metal against metal made the Mutons wince as much as Matthew as the blade scored across the ches-tplate of the armored suit, throwing off sparks like two flint stones striking off each other.
The third strike hit the end of the laser pistol and took off the flash suppresser at it’s detachable point.
Matthew moved the laser pistol up to the alien’s face and poked the end into the eye. The blast from the end was more messy than previous shots. Losing its flashback suppresser meant that the beam was not as well focused and so the energy was discharged unevenly. The damaged suppresser had also shorted out the main capacitor circuits mounted across the top of the barrel, causing most of the power capacitor to discharge in one shot.
The result was that half the Mutons face blew apart like if had been hit with one of the Browning’s bullets.
Matthew dropped the now useless gun and moved his other hand to the grip of the blade and ushered a silent prayer. He deflected a blow aimed at his thigh and swung the blade round to block the next swing. His swing was, by pure chance, a little wide, causing the ultra sharp tip of the blade to slice part way through the dark green bio-armor, causing that alien to step back for a moment.
But he was stalling for time. He was using an unfamiliar weapon against three trained opponents, and it was simple. He would loose. It was just a matter of how soon.
Another swing deflected high and left, swinging the blade round to counter a slice at waist height. A quick jab towards the Muton on the left to make it step back and it was back to the right to counter the next bone shattering impact of metal on metal.
But as the seconds wore on and each second brought another successful parry, and continued life for another second till the next attack landed, he couldn’t help but be surprised that he was holding the three Mutons off.
Matthew sensed more than saw the attacks by the Mutons. Something deep in the back of his mind was throwing thoughts straight to his muscles so he reacted instinctively to each blow to thrust and parry like a sword wielding warrior from legend.
The outside world fell away. All that existed was himself, the blade as an extension of his arm, and the three opponents. Everything seemed to slow down and it became almost easy to sweep aside the attacks that, by right, should have cleaved him in half.
A thought emerged from the depths of his mind to the front like a submarine surfacing the water. One minute there is still waves, the next a few ripples and a shadow, and then it is there. Strike back. It seemed so natural a thought, that even as it surfaced, he began to act on it.
Blocking a waist high cut from the left by deflecting the blade to the ground, Matthew planted his right foot on the Muton’s wrist and pushed. While the Mutons extra strength meant that there was no way he could hold it down there, the weight did slow down it’s ability to return to a suitable striking pose, and allow Matthew to bring his blade away from the trapped one, in an arc straight up.
The blade caught the Muton under the chin. The bio-armor covering the neck slowed the progress of the blade, but it was too sharp. The blade sliced up through the jaw like it was paper, snapping the Muton’s head back and tearing out a line out through the front of the lower skull, popping a metallic device out through the hole, impaled on the tip of the blade. On a human, the attack would have taken out the lover jaw and windpipe and made the victim suffocate in great pain. According to the dissections he had witnessed back at base, Matthew knew that Muton’s however, had completely separate digestion and respiration mechanisms in it’s body.
The nose was connected to a mechanical device that artificially purged the air, like an in built gas mask, down to the four lungs. The left nostril dealt with the two lungs, one above the other on the left, and the right dealt with the right lungs that mirrored the left.
On a human, most of the blood would have drained down to the stomach, and the lungs would have remained mostly clear. The Muton would suffocate in a minute as the blood would fill the lungs and suffocate the alien inside as the lungs tried to work in fluid.
As soon as the blade came out the lower face of the Muton, momentum carried it upwards, as Matthew swung on his left heel, bringing his right leg up and around in a roundhouse kick. It caught the Muton in the middle on the soft tissue at the entrance to it’s nasal cavity and blood splattered out as it breathed, reeling from the impact. This allowed Matthew the crucial two seconds to change the upwards direction of the blade and swing it down across the aliens chest.
Again the bio-armor slowed the blade, but did not stop it. Matthew felt the blade grate against the bone in the middle of the Muton’s chest and knew he was in trouble. The blade had stopped dead on the bony plate that covered the heart in the middle of the four lungs of the chest cavity.
The third Muton, on the right, swung the blade in a mirror of Matthew’s chest attack. He was left with a choice to see if his armor could take the blow, or he could do what came naturally when a person was faced with danger. He stepped back, releasing the grip on his own blade.
Fate intervened at this point as Matthew noticed Paul Smith leveling his rifle at the gathering. The gunshot sounded thunderous, echoing round the trees. The bullet impaled the Muton that had Matthew’s blade sticking out it’s chest in the back of the neck. The Muton staggered forward and the bullet exploded.
Most of the face exploded outwards with the detonation, causing blood and things thicker than blood to splatter Matthew head to foot in gore. The corpse fell forward like a sky diver out of a plane.
As the dead alien fell forwards, the third Muton’s blade caught the last quarter of Matthew’s own, causing it to pull from the chest, taking most of the bony heart plate with it, spattering more blood over the area, and speeding the fall of the dead warrior, straight on top of Matthew.
He fell under the weight of the corpse and ended up getting pinned to the ground, the remaining standing Muton turning to face Paul.
But it never got the chance. Gunfire erupted from four different directions as Paul, Lora Leicester and Dirk Jamesons all pulled the triggers of their new assault rifles. The assault rifles were the standard XCOM rifle, but with an extra barrel mounted underneath that fired a twelve millimeter exploding shell.
There is no sight quite like something exploding. One minute it is intact, the next second, fractures erupt and spill forth.
The Muton exploded like an over ripe tomato. It’s insides were thrown over a ten foot area, covering everything in a sticky, smell, black broth with lumps.
It was just too much. You never forget the smell of violent death after the first time. It smells like blood and shit. But the Muton’s blood smelled like than on it’s own. The smell that came from it’s digestive system was over powering.
Matthew had not believed the Medical report on the dissection file that said they had to switch on the air pump to keep the examiners from passing out from the smell during the dissection. Now he did!
He gagged. He was covered in the stuff and the smell clawed down his throat, making him feel like he was swallowing vomit. The fluids burned his exposed face and smoldered slightly on his armor. You could actually see parts of the body being dissolved in the pools of stomach fluid on the ground. Seeing that, and imagining what it was doing to his face, Matthew screamed. It wasn’t a scream of pain. It was beyond that. It was pain, and the realization that his face was being dissolved.
Blackness edged the corner of his vision and he realized that he had run out of breath and had not breathed in. He was passing out. It was a natural defense that the mind had developed during evolution. Anything that could cause neural shock was normally blanked out. It works like amnesia, but for a second, you know it’s happening.
When the blackness finally claimed him, he was simply glad that he would not have to stare at part of a Muton body disintegrating in it’s own stomach acids.


Chapter 8 out within two weeks! (I hope!)