by Rick Barba
“What if the Assassin emerges?” asked Koros.
Rika’s eyes flashed darkly at him. “Then it is time for a glory kill,” she said.
Darox shook his head. “No. If that happens, all other orders are suspended. We stay hidden, we contact command, and then we track her. Understood?”
Rika moved to her position at the tree line.
“Understood,” she said.
“Activate headsets, red frequency,” said Darox. “No chatter.”
Koros and Mahnk skidded down the gravel slope and hustled into cover among the boulders. After a few seconds, Darox sprinted into the ravine up the narrow, graded exit passage. Twenty meters in, he began to question the sanity of his plan; he was completely exposed from all three cliff walls of the rift. The only cover near the big gray door was in a puddle of icy water behind a lone boulder.
As Darox splashed into the spot, he noticed a flash of movement up high on the headwall to his right. He tapped his earpiece.
“Anybody see that?” he whispered.
“See what, boss?” replied Koros.
“Something moved,” said Darox. “Above the door. Right on the cliff.”
“I see nothing,” replied Koros.
“Nor do I,” said Mahnk.
“No visuals marked,” reported Rika.
Darox stared hard at the spot. He was sure he’d seen movement. He pulled out his binoculars and trained them on the spot. Nothing. He lowered them. Then he saw something slowly edge out from behind a rock column on the precipice. He raised the binoculars again.
A hooded, human figure was aiming a scoped sniper rifle. At him.
Darox looked down. A red laser targeting dot shivered on his chest. After a brief instant of panic, he had a calm, clear realization: If this shooter wanted him dead, he’d be dead already.
Slowly, Darox raised the binoculars to his eyes again. Then his silver eyes grew big.
Two more hooded human figures, pistols drawn, were sneaking up behind the sniper.
Darox stood up.
Instinctively, he began waving one hand at the shooter who was targeting his heart. But before he could see what happened, the big metal door in the headwall clanked loudly, then rattled open sideways on rollers. Darox dived back behind the boulder just in time.
Seven Chryssalids clattered out of the mountain, clearly in a big hurry.
THE AVENGER BRIDGE was always a high-alert zone. But when Dr. Marin reported as ordered to the flight deck, the intensity had rotated off the dial.
The flight crew was feverishly running through a preflight checklist. The gunnery officer and his team stood at the ship’s gun station, prepping the Avenger’s fire-control system. In the middle of the bridge, gathered around the holographic Geoscape globe, Central Officer Bradford and his tactical command-and-control team (called C2) stared up at the four ceiling-mounted monitors with maniacal focus.
“Will!”
Marin turned to see Dr. Tygan waving him over to the communications console against the starboard hull. He hurried to join the chief scientist, who stood behind a row of technicians sitting at the comm stations.
“Man, it’s buzzing in here,” said Marin. “What’s up?”
“This is remarkable,” replied Tygan. “Roy Thibideaux’s team found the ADVENT forward operating base. And it’s huge.”
Marin’s eyes grew big. “That’s good news, right?” he asked. “Or maybe not?”
“It’s good we found it,” said Tygan. “The aliens are building some kind of massive storage tank inside a mountain.”
“For what purpose?”
“Well now, that’s the mystery,” replied Tygan.
Marin glanced at the Geoscape. “Where are we going?” he asked. “And why am I here?”
Tygan smiled. “We’re going to Colorado,” he said. “And we need your psionic sensors.”
Marin nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Why?”
Bradford moved to join them. “Dr. Marin,” he said with a nod of greeting.
“I’ll let Central explain,” said Tygan. He stepped over to the radar post.
Bradford was even more no-nonsense than usual. “Before we commit to a base assault, we need to know what our troops are up against,” he said, his phrases clipped tight. “If the enemy has a bunch of new-breed Sectoids or, god forbid, an Elder or two in there, we need to know about it.”
“That makes sense.”
“Yes,” said Bradford. “Can your sensors penetrate, say, a marble-lined cavern inside a mountain?”
“Oh yeah,” said Marin, nodding. “No problem.”
Bradford looked skeptical. “Really?”
“Our instrumentation could probably measure psionic wells in the mesospheric mantle a thousand miles down.” Marin closed both hands, then flicked them open. “I mean, psionic energy pops like firecrackers. It’s very potent stuff. In the same ballpark as gamma-ray bursts, the most intense energy sources in the universe.”
“Okay,” said Bradford. “So, what do you need for a psionic scan of our target site?”
“I need about two minutes of piggyback time on the ADVENT psionic network,” said Marin. “Thirty seconds to find the right satellite and another ninety for the scan.”
“And what do you need from us to acquire this network access?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Bradford’s voice was getting slightly louder with each exchange. “Really? You need nothing.”
“Oh, we’ve had network access for months,” said Marin. “Just punch a button. But we can’t stay very long. It would risk detection.”
Bradford gave him a dark look. “This all sounds far too good to be true, Dr. Marin.”
Marin shrugged. “I got this kid, Gilmore, downstairs,” he said. “Guy’s a genius with this sort of thing.”
“Whatever,” said Bradford. “How long to get this scan done?”
“Give me the ADVENT site coordinates, and I’ll zap them down to the kids,” said Marin. “We’ll have the scan on your scopes in, oh, about seven minutes.” Marin glanced at his watch. “Well, maybe eight if the Avenger is on the move. Are we taking off soon? Sure looks like it.”
Bradford just stared at Marin for a few seconds. Then he said, “Yes, we are taking off soon.”
Marin frowned. “Well, that might delay the scan lock by a minute or so,” he said.
“That’s disappointing,” said Bradford.
Marin couldn’t quite ascertain Bradford’s tone. But he said, “I’ll get my crew right on it.”
Bradford pointed to a woman at the radar console.
“Check with Maggie for the coordinates,” he said. “And Doctor, I’m more concerned with accuracy than speed, so . . . take an extra forty, fifty seconds if you need it.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Marin. “I doubt it will be necessary.”
Bradford’s mouth twitched upward at both corners.
“This is the most enjoyable conversation I’ve had in months,” he said. “Maybe years.” He turned away and rejoined the C2 team at the main monitors.
Marin shrugged. “Okay,” he said.
* * *
Ten minutes later the site scan was displayed on one of the console monitors. The ADVENT forward base was clean of psionic signatures.
“Interesting,” said Dr. Tygan. “No psionic units at all?”
Marin stared at the monitor. “That’s what it looks like.”
Next to him, Bradford stood with folded arms. “Maybe they know psionics are detectable,” he said. “And they don’t want to be detected.”
Marin stroked his chin. “Wow,” he said.
Tygan and Bradford turned to him. “What is it, Will?” asked Tygan.
Marin’s eyes narrowed as he thought.
“Listen,” he said. “Think about that video from Vail Pass I showed you the other day, the mysterious massacre of the ADVENT platoon. Downstairs, we watched that entire sequence over and over.”
“It was remarkable,” sai
d Tygan.
“Yes, well, the Sectoids in that detachment were clearly on super high alert from the moment they debarked from their transport,” said Marin. “They were looking for something. Then, boom, they get slaughtered by assailants wielding astounding psionic powers with very distinctive spectroscopic readouts.”
Tygan nodded. “Maybe the aliens got psionic readings via some form of spectroscopy too and were hunting down the source?”
“Exactly,” said Marin.
“So how does that apply to this forward base?” asked Bradford.
“Maybe this mysterious new cabal of psionic masters can track psionic activity too,” said Marin. He turned to Bradford. “Just like you suggested, the aliens may be trying to avoid detection. To keep this base secret from their new tormentors.” He looked at Tygan. “My people and I think what happened on Vail Pass was a slightly more dramatic version of what our sensor data has been telling us for weeks. This has been happening all along the Continental Divide. We just didn’t have the context to grasp it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bradford.
Marin walked up to the Geoscape and pointed to the Rocky Mountain region.
“We crunched all of our readings from the past two months,” he said. “Hot spots popping up all along the range from Canada on down.”
Bradford and Tygan stepped up next to him. They all gazed at the shimmering hologlobe.
“Psionics appear in a scan,” said Marin. “Soon after, other psionics sort of arrive. There’s a jockeying for position, it seems . . . rapid, chaotic . . . and one by one, dots get snuffed out. We thought maybe it was just the unstable nature of psionic energy . . . or just a bunch of satellite noise. We had no idea what sort of actual events our scans were depicting.”
Tygan nodded. “Alien psionic units, maybe attached to ADVENT patrols, are the first dots,” he said. “And they’re getting detected, hunted down, then wiped out by these unknown entities.”
At this, Bradford turned to face Marin.
“We need to find these people,” he said. “And get them on our side.”
Marin thought for a second. Then he asked, “What if they’re not human?”
“Who cares?” said Bradford. “They kill aliens. I’ve got thirty-five ghoulish hybrids out on the battle line right now.” He jabbed his finger toward the overhead monitors. “They call themselves Skirmishers. They have snake noses and silver eyes the size of saucers. And guess what? They are now our allies.” Bradford pinched his forehead and closed his eyes as if in pain. “For today, anyway.”
“Well, they clearly hate the aliens as much as we do,” said Tygan.
“Right,” said Bradford. “There’s a Resistance movement out there. It’s extensive but scattered in many pieces. Our job is to pull it all together, preferably under XCOM direction.” He looked at Marin. “You’ve got a new job, Dr. Marin.”
“Find the psionic people.”
“Yes.”
Marin nodded. “Okay.”
Suddenly, a C2 officer called out from the tactical console on the port hull.
“Quiet on the command deck!” he shouted. All chatter immediately ceased. “Central, sir, Captain Thibideaux is ready for kickoff. All three squads locked and loaded, Grenadiers ready to launch. Skirmisher units are on the base perimeter, and we’ve got recon up on the ridge at the escape hatch. Waiting on your green, sir.”
“Green light,” said Bradford without hesitation.
Speaking into a slim microphone on the console, the C2 officer said, “Sick ’em, Roy.”
“Battle stations, everyone,” called Bradford.
Marin, unsettled, glanced over at Tygan. “Should I go back to the lab now?”
“Hell, no, Will,” said Tygan, staring up at the current live feed, an overhead shot of the ADVENT base from a hovering drone camera. “This is the biggest XCOM move in twenty years. You want to tell your grandkids you were on the Avenger bridge the day we started winning the war.”
Marin smiled big. “I like your optimism.”
“Other than my scruffy lab, it’s all I’ve got right now,” said Tygan.
Bradford called out, “Captain Maddow?”
From the front of the bridge cockpit, the Avenger’s pilot flipped a switch and said, “Yes, sir, ignition switch set. All systems go. Ready for liftoff on your call.”
“Let’s go to Colorado,” said Bradford.
On-screen, the live image shuddered as concussion waves from the first volley of XCOM cannon fire hit the camera.
* * *
Dr. Marin found the actual warfighting aspect of XCOM’s mission both fascinating and horrifying.
As an evolutionary biologist, he understood the exigencies of survival, the dark buried roots of violence, war, even genocide. And the pitiless mass slaughter of Earth’s innocent civilians had long ago snuffed out any concern over the ethics of XCOM’s cruel medical experimentation on alien prisoners.
Intellectually, he also grasped the necessity of XCOM’s brutal tactics on the battlefield. But the violent and bloody immediacy of the drone-fed imagery was still unsettling. Bradford’s C2 team had multiple live video feeds running on the XCOM bridge monitors, shifting quickly between helmet-cams of various troops in the fight. The chatter was impressively calm and professional as C2 took field input and directed combat operations in real time. But every few minutes, one video feed would go black just as another feed recorded an ADVENT counterstrike across the field. A momentary hush would fall over the situation room: another good soldier down.
“Confirmed,” called the C2 casualty officer after one report. He turned to Bradford. “Four down, sir.”
“Ten percent is acceptable,” replied Bradford. “Press ahead full.”
“Roger that. I’ve got a specialist patched in.”
“Let’s hear him,” said Bradford.
A panting voice reported, “Two are stabilized and good for medevac. But we lost two.”
“Roger, we will authorize Skyranger pickup once the enemy turrets are KIA,” said the C2 officer. “Until then, keep those folks breathing, sergeant.”
“Will do,” replied the voice. “Out.”
The good news was that the ambush seemed to have caught the ADVENT base defense entirely by surprise. Enemy units that survived the initial bombardment were soon overwhelmed by the Skirmisher waves sweeping up both flanks. At one point, Captain Thibideaux’s voice blared over the speakers. C2 put his feed on the main monitor.
“By god, these hybrids are good,” he exclaimed. His helmet-cam view bounced as the captain forded Yule Creek, advancing into the target environment. “Damned if they didn’t roll up both sides faster than grass through a goose. We’re already hitting the bunker.”
The last obstacle to the quarry cavern was the fortified ADVENT security bunker guarding the entrance. Heavily armored robotic turrets were installed at each corner of the roof. The rotating guns spewed red-hot Gauss rounds and could take a lot of punishment. Nailing them would require a masterful demolitions effort.
“Roger that, Roy,” said Bradford with a tight smile. “Are you good?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“How good?”
“It’s a Cajun clambake, Johnny.”
Roy Thibideaux was the only person aboard the Avenger—and probably in the entire world—who could call Bradford “Johnny” and get away with it.
On-screen, Thibideaux’s head turned just enough for a helmet-cam glimpse of Corporal Eloise Blunt to his right laying down ferocious suppressive fire with her minigun. Gazing at the monitor, Marin watched in awe; the woman was tall and mighty, swinging the blazing gun muzzle side to side. Her armor had distinctive black stripes slashed across its camo pattern. She was also a hellish bartender in the Avenger lounge when she took her rotation.
Suddenly Marin’s beeper went off. He flipped open his shipboard communicator.
“Hey, Bonnie, what’s up?” he asked.
Lopez hesitated, then said, “Uh, we jus
t ran a follow-up scan on the base area.”
Marin immediately ducked over to an unoccupied alcove near the exit door. “I don’t like your voice right now.”
“Something’s coming,” she said.
“Crap,” said Marin. “The assault is fully engaged.”
“It looks big.”
Marin glanced over at Bradford. “Since the Avenger is on the move, we can probably risk another good scan,” he said. “Let’s make sure we have something solid before I drop a bomb on this situation room.”
“Dialing it up now, boss,” she said. “Where should I send the files?”
Marin found an unused console station and punched up its network address. “Sending you an address now,” he said. “Buzz me when the scan’s done, send it here, and we’ll talk. Is Gilmore there?”
“Boss, he sleeps in our equipment alcove.”
“What?”
“He’s always here is my point.”
“Okay, tell him I’m not taking an abort recommendation to Central just because we saw some scary purple dots.” Marin glanced up at the monitor feed just in time to see two XCOM Rangers pinned down by turret fire. Powerful Gauss rounds were shattering the rock slab where they hid. Rock chips flew like confetti.
He said, “Tell him I need more than purple dots.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Marin watched nervously as his favorite bartender, Lieutenant Danny Roman, launched an EMP grenade with uncanny accuracy onto the only ADVENT turret still operational on the bunker rooftop. The bluish detonation disabled the gun’s firing mechanism long enough for Bravo squad’s concentrated cannon fire to shred its armor.
After a few seconds, the turret exploded in an orange fireball.
“Well done, kids,” called Captain Thibideaux over his radio feed. “Johnny, we are at the gate.”
“Acknowledged,” replied Bradford. “Are you taking fire through the entrance?”
“Hang on,” said the captain.
There was a pause. Several different feeds were linked to monitors in the bridge. All of them had grown silent.
“Listen to that, XCOM.” It was Thibideaux again. “We are inside, and it’s a church in here.”
On-screen, the monitor transmitting the video feed from Thibideaux’s helmet-cam went blinding white. After a few seconds, the light ratio adjusted. The feed showed a massive cavern with towering, snow-white walls. Construction scaffolding lined the lower levels. Two 80-foot cranes and assorted other vehicles were parked nearby.
