XCOM 2- Resurrection

by Greg Keyes

  She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “What did the old lady want with you?” he asked.

  “She offered me a job,” Lena replied in an odd tone.

  “Really?” he said, turning down the volume and facing her. “Doing what?”

  “I’ll be trained to do something,” she said.

  “Something? That’s awfully vague.”

  He had been feeling pretty good, but suddenly things felt a little out of control again. He’d assumed that Lena would continue her training as a soldier. While he didn’t feel terribly good about that, it meant she would be around. He wanted her around.

  “I thought so, too,” she said. “Apparently the main thing isn’t what job I do but that I remain here.”

  His mouth felt suddenly a little dry.

  “Why?” But he knew the answer. He should have guessed.

  She smiled, but it didn’t read as happy. Quite the opposite. “Sam warned me that if I came with you I would know too much for them to let me go. It seems he was right. They want me tucked away here, where there’s no risk of me jumping ship whenever the Elpis comes to port.”

  “Vahlen said that?”

  “Of course not,” she replied, “but I can read between the lines.”

  “I can talk to Shen,” he said. He should have already. How had he not seen this coming?

  She shook her head. “It’s okay. It’s probably for the best. I don’t think I could go back home anyway, knowing what I know. But I don’t know that I belong on the Elpis—Thomas will never let me have a weapon, and even if she did, I don’t know that I’m cut out to do what you do.” She gave him a thin smile. “Who knows, maybe after a while I can build a little trust here. Do something useful. Find my mother, or at least the truth about what happened to her.”

  “Is that really how you feel?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m trying to put the best face on things, since I don’t really have a choice.”

  Amar nodded, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

  “There is one tiny little bright side,” she said. “Maybe.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m not going to be in a squad with you.”

  It caught him off guard, although he knew it shouldn’t have. He didn’t know who started to lean in first, and he didn’t care. Her lips were warm and soft, and in fact everything about her was abruptly completely amazing. And he knew that he shouldn’t, that it was stupid, that when they sailed away and left her there it would leave a hole in his chest as sure as any mag rifle could drill. He didn’t care. He’d spent years regretting the past and worrying about the future. To be in a moment, this moment, with her, was all he wanted.

  He got the call from Thomas an hour later, and it had to end. That was difficult. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, so he just touched his forehead to hers, and they stood that way for a few heartbeats.

  “I wonder how long it will take Vahlen to analyze the data,” Lena said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “A few more days. More. I hope.”

  “Me too,” she said. “Find me later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  * * *

  Amar ended up getting his walk in the caldera after all. Thomas sent Toby and him up to patrol and check on some sensors for Vahlen. As promised, the mouth of the volcano was warmer than the rest of the island, so Toby eschewed his hood and instead wore his customary skullcap. He had several—this one was colorful—red, gold and green. It looked new, and Amar wondered if Toby had crocheted it on the Elpis. He usually wore black or brown.

  The view down was better than the one from the beach. There was another island of about the same size as the one they were on three kilometers or so away, and beyond that nothing but marine horizon.

  But they were fortunate enough to see the sun rise. Amar had always loved the anticipation as the sky grew brighter until the moment when the first fiery little slice of the sun appeared, spilling a golden river across the waves. He was still amazed by how suddenly the sphere appeared, how quickly it leapt from the horizon and then seemed to slow and settle into a statelier pace. It was like a magic trick, distorting one’s sense of space and time.

  Toby watched with him, looking thoughtful.

  “You’re a sunrise guy, aren’t you?” Toby said.

  “I like them, I guess,” he said.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Toby said. “I grew up by the water, like you, in Israel and later California. So I never saw the sun come out of the sea like that. I always saw it go into it, vanish, disappear.”

  “Okay,” Amar said. “I’ve seen that, too.”

  “But you weren’t formed by it,” Toby said. “You grew up on the east coast of Malaysia, yes? How old were you before you saw the sun set into the sea?”

  “I don’t know. When I was seventeen, I guess,” he said.

  “Right!” Toby said. “I was older than that before I saw what we just watched. You’re a sunrise guy. I’m a sunset guy.”

  “Is there really a difference?” Amar asked, wondering where the lean sniper was going with all of this.

  “I don’t know,” Toby admitted. “I feel like there must be. To see birth every morning, instead of death. That must make a difference.”

  “Okay,” Amar said, “now you’re getting all metaphorical on me. What’s gotten into you?”

  Toby shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably nothing. Too much time to think, I suppose.”

  He looked off into the far distance, leaving Amar feeling a little awkward. “You know,” Amar said, “If you grew up on a little island like this, you would see both events every day. I wonder what that would make you.”

  Toby smiled. “Then you would get to choose,” he said.

  Amar’s earpiece crackled. It was Thomas.

  “You two need to get back here,” she said. “Now.”

  * * *

  They met with Vahlen in the same round room. She was clearly angry, reading data from one of her screens and ranting in what sounded like German.

  “The signal,” she said to her assistant. “It’s all wrong. Not at all typical.”

  She looked at them as they entered. “What have you done?” she demanded.

  “I don’t understand the question,” Thomas replied.

  Vahlen stabbed her finger toward one of the screens. It showed six small dots, moving in formation.

  “ADVENT troop transports,” she said. “Coming here. There can be no mistake.”

  “Are you saying we were followed?” Thomas said.

  “I’m saying nothing of the kind,” Vahlen snapped. “If they had followed the Elpis, they would have arrived here just after you did. And they would not be coming from South America. No, they were summoned. My instruments didn’t pick up the signal. It was too subtle until I suspected it.” She glanced down at the readings, then back at them.

  “The signal originates here,” she said, waving at her machines. “Something has hijacked my own system and is forcing it to transmit. I’ve shut it down, of course, but it’s already too late.”

  She handed a small briefcase to Sam. “Get this to Shen,” she said. “And hurry, you don’t have much time before they arrive.”

  “What about you?” Sam asked. “We need you, Dr. Vahlen. Come with us.”

  “I am not without defenses,” she said. “And I can’t leave all of this for them to find. Go! Take the vehicles in the hangar.”

  As they started out, Amar noticed Lena stood as if rooted. Looking at him. Looking stricken. Vahlen had already turned away, poking furiously at a keyboard.

  Between the space of one breath and another, he made his decision.

  He grabbed her by the wrist.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “She’s not thinking about you right now. In a minute she may remember.”

  * * *

  “What the hell?” DeLao shouted, as Amar pushed Lena into the jeep and took the wheel. “We can’t bring h
er. She’s the one that signaled them; you know it was.”

  “We don’t know any such thing,” Amar replied. “Vahlen said it was her own equipment. Get in, and let’s get out of here.”

  “If we take her back to ship, they’ll track us there, too,” Toby said. “DeLao’s right. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Lena said. “I swear it.”

  The other jeep with Thomas, Sam, Nishimura, and Palepoi was starting to move out.

  “We should go,” Chitto said.

  “Get in, DeLao,” Amar said.

  “You’re a great actor,” DeLao told Lena. “I remember when we first picked you up. Pretending you wanted to join us, then turning a gun on us. You’re not going to fool us again. Or me, anyway.”

  Amar started the car and stepped on the gas. With a yelp, DeLao flung himself in.

  “You damn fool!” Toby said.

  “We’ve got no time for this,” Amar said. “We’ll figure it out at the ship.”

  They made it nearly halfway back before they saw the transports, flying in from the west. For one heart-stopping moment, Amar thought they were fine, that they hadn’t been noticed. But then one of the fliers peeled off from the rest.

  “You see?” DeLao bellowed.

  “Just shut up,” Amar said.

  Thomas’s voice crackled in his ear.

  “Stop and get out,” she said. “We can’t lead them back to the Elpis. We’ll fight them here.”

  The beach offered no cover whatsoever unless you counted the jeeps, which in Amar’s experience never lasted long against alien weapons—and in fact tended to turn into bombs. So their only recourse was the mountain behind them. Where ice didn’t cover the stone, Amar could see the shape of how the lava had come down in viscous, almost ropey flows with grooves between them that offered some cover. Amar found a likely place a few meters up the slope and took a position, with Chitto on his left flank and DeLao off to his right. Thomas was yet farther to the right, and Sam was with her. The new guy, Palepoi, was a little higher up, behind them. Toby was still spidering his way up the mountain to what looked like a deeper crack in the ice. Nishimura he did not see at all.

  Lena was still with him.

  “I swear,” she said. “I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Just stay down,” he said. “No matter what.”

  The slope was far too steep for the transport to land on, so the jabbers would have to land on the shingle where they had abandoned their vehicles. Amar watched the craft settle, trying to calm himself.

  “This is going to be so much fun,” Toby’s voice crackled in his ear.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE HATCH OF the transport opened, and ADVENT soldiers poured out, twelve of them, most running toward their positions. One—a captain—hung back, taking cover behind one of the jeeps. Two shield bearers stood near him and began laying down suppressing fire. Ferromagnetic slugs spalled stone and hissed into the snow all around them.

  High above, Amar heard the crack of Toby’s high-powered rifle and saw one of the troopers stagger. Amar immediately lifted a bit and unloaded a few rounds on her. Enemy fire spattered against the lava flow in front of him. Everyone else was shooting now. He took aim and fired at the stun lancer trying to come around on his left, but the fellow ducked nimbly behind a burr of stone.

  The air was alive with deadly hail, and the sharp scent of ozone nearly overpowered the stink of guano.

  “Right there!” Chitto yelped and blasted away. Concentrating on the flanking trooper, Amar had missed the one coming straight toward them, arms flailing. He turned and fired almost point blank at the jabber as it lifted its lance to hit him. It poised over him for a moment, rocking on the balls of its feet as it tried to keep balanced. Amar shot it again, and it went jangling down the slope.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered, turning back. Was the other jabber still behind the same rock, or …?

  No. It appeared farther upslope, coming almost from behind him. He lifted up to get a shot at it, but the cover fire from the shield bearers forced him back down.

  Cursing silently, he waited.

  Then, suddenly, the stun trooper was there, leaping forward …

  No, falling.

  “Nice shot, Toby,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Toby said. “I… Oh, crap. Guys, they’re coming from behind us. Must have landed another transport in the caldera. I can’t hold this position.”

  “Come on down, Toby,” Thomas said. “Everybody else get ready. We’re going to do a Custer. Palepoi, open the front door. Amar, Chitto—mind the house. DeLao, you’re with me.”

  Amar heard the rocket launcher fire, and then one of the shield bearers exploded in a billowing black cloud. To his right, Thomas bolted down the mountain, her assault rifle yammering.

  Amar stood and began firing at the troopers as they emerged from the smoke. A rifle fired, just behind him, and heard Toby whoop.

  “Got the captain,” he said. Then he made a peculiar coughing sound. Amar couldn’t turn around, but a few seconds later the sharpshooter came staggering by him, his eyes wide and glazed.

  “Toby, get down!” he shouted.

  Toby looked at him, puzzled, as if he didn’t understand what he was saying. Then, a sleet of mag pellets fell on them from above. Toby’s armor was shredded, and he tumbled down the slope.

  Amar would be just as exposed in a few seconds.

  “Lena,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, to not let the panic seep into it. “Get over there with Chitto. Do it now.”

  He raised and fired upslope as Lena tripped her way across the rough stone. Then he scrambled a little farther up, where a boulder offered some protection. He’d thought his knee was better, but it was aching again, and although his face was cold, inside of his bodysuit he was sweating.

  He could only hope Thomas and DeLao were keeping the troopers behind him on the beach busy, because his back was now fully available to them.

  They weren’t, or at least not entirely. Slugs traced crimson trails up the slope less than a meter from him. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, though, so he gritted his teeth and charged for the boulder, waiting for the burst he would never hear, maybe never even feel.

  It didn’t come. Instead, he heard a rifle fire. He reached the boulder and looked back down. Chitto had Toby’s gun. As he watched, she calmly took aim at the remaining shield bearer and put a bullet right between its eyes. Then she shifted her aim to a trooper who had Thomas pinned down behind a jeep.

  She squeezed the trigger, and it, too, dropped.

  Then Lena stood up, lifting Chitto’s shotgun, pointing it at him. He froze, unable to move, unable to believe what she was doing.

  Then the muzzle lifted farther, and she fired.

  A nightmare came tumbling over him.

  His brain told him it was a spider, a spider that stood as high as a man, a spider with knives for legs and a centipede for a face. It hadn’t been able to dodge Lena’s blast, but it had tried, and it hit the rocks two meters from Lena and Chitto.

  He knew he was screaming inarticulately, and he didn’t care. He opened up on the monster and turned it into a twitching mass of horribleness.

  He looked back up and saw three more of the things bounding toward them with unnatural speed.

  Chryssalids. One of the nastier aliens, nearly mindless but incredibly dangerous.

  “Let’s go!” he hollered. “Now.”

  As they scrambled down, he saw Nishimura beheading a jabber with her sword. Thomas and DeLao were firing at the enemies coming down the hill, and they hauled ass toward the transports. He signaled for Chitto to go left, and he took right. A glance over his shoulder showed one of the monsters bounding toward him, and he knew he would never make it to cover.

  Thomas stood from behind the jeep and fired a burst at the thing, jolting it so it lost its rhythm. But then it scrambled back up. Amar dove past the chief, hoping to get behind the transport. He rolled an
d turned, expecting the Chryssalid to be right on top of him. But it had changed targets.

  As he watched it leap over the jeep, he had what seemed like a long moment to clearly see its four scythe-like legs and two spindly arms ending in four wicked claws, all coming down on Thomas.

  Amar saw blood spray as Thomas fired a final burst, and the Chryssalid plunged its claws into her.

  Thomas!

  Then it turned its glowing yellow eyes toward him.

  He emptied his clip into it. He reloaded, and would have shot it again, but it wasn’t moving anymore, so he began looking for another target, his breath coming almost like hiccups, like his lungs had shrunk to the size of thumbs.

  Troopers and aliens were swarming down the volcano. There were so many of them that he had trouble choosing which one to target. Worse, he saw another transport coming over the lip of the caldera.

  He looked around at his companions. DeLao, grim-faced, changing his clip. Nishimura, her sword sheathed, pistol blazing. Lena, shotgun braced on her shoulder.

  And Chitto taking shot after shot, as if she was on a firing range rather than in a battle for her life. Her face was a mask, devoid of emotion.

  “KB!” Sam yelped from behind him. “Look!”

  Where Thomas lay dead, something moved. He watched as the Chryssalid was pushed away, and Thomas staggered to her feet.

  “Chief!” he said. “I thought …” Then he trailed off, remembering what he knew about the venom Chryssalids carried in their claws.

  It should have been obvious, anyway: Thomas had gaping wounds, and her throat was torn out. There was nothing human about her eyes. Like Rider, there was no soul there anymore. No human soul, anyway.

  Thomas took a step toward him.

  He shot her, again and again, until he was sure she wouldn’t get up again. Each bullet seemed to take something of him with it, hollowing him out.

  “What are we going to do?” DeLao shouted. “We don’t have a chance.”

  Amar glanced around, suddenly feeling weirdly calm. The penguins that had carpeted the beach earlier were all waddling to the ocean, which was only about two meters behind them.