XCOM TFTD: Ensign Rising
Chapter 1
"Barracuda One to base, I have the USO on scanners, estimated time to weapons range, ninety seconds."
"Roger Barracuda One, maintain radio silence from now until first engagement." The technician shut down his radio and blew up his radar screen, displaying two small dots converging on a large white spot. Behind him stood the commander-in-chief of XCOM, Admiral Igor Zhadanovich, alongside him were Colonel Maria Sharpe, sitting in her wheelchair, and Lieutenant Samuel Remmington.
"Is there any sign that the ship knows they're there?" Remmington was dressed for combat, his whole body except for his head encased in Aqua Armour, with his diving helmet under his left arm.
"Oh they know they're there," Colonel Sharpe was dressed differently from the others. Whereas Zhadanovich and the technicians wore blue overalls, with only the insignia on their epaulets to distinguish them, she was clad in a green army uniform, with her colonel's insignia on the shoulders. "They always know."
"That may be the case for Barracuda Two," Zhadanovich bent down to get a closer look at the radar screen, "but there's no way they can pick up number one, he's following in the wakestream just as we told him."
"Barracuda Two to base, I will have visual contact in five seconds." The radio seemed strangely crackly. Zhadanovich frowned. "Jesus!"
"What's wrong Barracuda Two?"
"It's no Heavy Cruiser, it's bigger, three decks from what I can see, asymmetrical. I'll send you the feed." The screen flashed up a blurry photo of a multilayered vessel, the glow from its huge engines almost obscuring it entirely.
"Call them off," Sharpe's voice was quiet but insistent.
"What?"
"Call them off! We weren't even sure if they could take down a Heavy Cruiser, god knows what this thing is."
"It's not that much bigger," Remmington said, "the sonic oscillator should still be okay."
"And what if it destroys Barracuda One before it can get a shot off, number two won't stand a chance with nothing but Ajax missiles!"
"Barracuda One is now within Oscillator range," the technician interrupted.
"Well we might as well try it," Zhadanovich said, and tapped the technician on the shoulder, "send them the authorization."
"Base to Barracuda, One you are cleared to attack, repeat, attack immediately."
The dots on the radar screen flickered as Barracuda One dropped down out of its sister ship's wake, giving itself a clear shot with the latest piece of alien technology, the sonic oscillator.
Straight away the USO changed course, heading for the Barracudas at a speed so fast it scrambled the readings. A thick beam of light streamed from the USO, and Barracuda One's dot vanished.
"Call off number two!" yelled Zhadanovich.
"It's too late," Sharpe sighed.
"Base to Barracuda Two, abort attack, get out of there!"
"It's no good!" the radio was almost inaudible, "it's closing too fast, I've got to try and take it down."
"Negative Barracuda Two, abort, abort!" The four humans watched as more and more beams of light streaked towards the dot representing Barracuda Two, the flying sub somehow managed to dodge all of them, until it had almost merged with the USO spot. The radio crackled in and out.
"Port thrusters hit... computer systems failing… releasing… missiles."
"He's launched all twelve of his Ajax," the technician reported.
"It won't do any good," Zhadanovich shook his head, "it wouldn't matter if he had a hundred missiles, they won't even dent the hull!"
"I'm hit!" Barracuda Two's dot started flickering, its depth meter plunging downwards until it stopped at 534m, the depth of the sea.
"It's still registering on the radar," Remmington said, "at least that means the reactor is still operational."
"Yes, but look at the USO!"
The alien sub was circling the area, appearing to be preparing for the kill. Then, suddenly, it too started flickering, its depth reading dropping only slightly slower than the Barracuda's had. Finally it stopped at 540m, just a few clicks from where Barracuda Two lay.
"My god," the technician stared wide-eyed at the monitor; "he got it." Zhadanovich was the first to snap out of the shock.
"Sound the amber alert. Lieutenant, get down to Triton Four and deploy, immediately!"
"Yes sir," Remmington almost ran out of the sonar room. Zhadanovich turned to Sharpe.
"You'd better get over to tactical."
"Yes Admiral," Sharpe spun round on her wheels and rolled away. Zhadanovich couldn't help but be impressed by how quickly the seventy-year-old colonel could move in the wheelchair.
The Admiral turned back to the sonar technician, whose name was James Riley. He was one of five on MED ALPHA, XCOM's floating base in the Mediterranean, and all but one of them was milling around the sonar room. He knew the missing one would be over in tactical, helping Colonel Sharpe set up. The sonar module was the heart and soul of the MED ALPHA base. Sure enough without the living quarters and storage modules they'd never get any recruits, and without the sub pens they'd never be able to strike back at the aliens, but without the sonar module they would be blind, which was what Zhadanovich feared the most. Like the other officers he had an office in the living quarters, but he and they spent most of their time in the sonar module.
For just a moment, Zhadanovich turned his thoughts to the pilots of Barracuda One. Like its sister ship, they consisted of one Navy and one Air Force officer, a combination with just enough skill to control the rapid but erratic prototype submarines. They had been with XCOM since the start, and up to now they had not lost a single Barracuda. This was mainly because up to now they had only dared to engage scout craft, but that didn't make the Admiral feel any better.
He was snapped out of his melancholy by the announcement that Triton Four had left its sub pen. Unlike the Barracuda crews, the aquanauts that manned the troop transport had a very high turnover. It wasn't unusual for them to lose half of the ten-man squad on a successful mission, and unlike the Barracudas they had already lost three Triton craft for the simple reason that everyone aboard had been wiped out in battle.
Of the forty seamen who had originally been recruited by XCOM, only three remained. Remmington, who had risen to the rank of Lieutenant, and two Ensigns, Henri Dreyfuss and Louis Dujardin. Usually, one of the officers would command a Triton mission, with nine Able Seamen or Seamen and one tank. However, due to the extreme danger of attempting their first strike against a large alien ship, Zhadanovich had ordered that Remmington and Dreyfuss both be stationed on the Triton. Normally he would have sent eight Able Seamen along as well, but circumstances had mitigated against it.
The previous mission had been a disaster. The lab boys had just completed a full batch of Aqua Armour for the first time, and with the aquanauts now fully trained in the use of alien sonic rifles and sonic cannons it looked like they were finally getting the upper hand over the Gillmen and Aquatoids. When an alien terror ship launched an attack against a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico aquanauts had actually been volunteering to go.
Then they had landed. Instead of thin skinned Gillmen and predictable Aquatoids they had faced giant, lobster-like creatures, with a shell so thick even sonic rifles were useless, and accompanied by floating drones whose weapon was a sonic scream which burst your eardrums just before it scrambled your brain. They had lost five men clearing the upper deck alone, three of them dying when a Bio-drone self destructed after they finally managed to shoot it down. By the time they had cleared the holds the only aquanaut still alive was Ensign Dujardin, and he lost an eye in hand-to-hand combat with the final Lobsterman. Every single civilian on the ship perished.
This was a massive blow to morale. Before the mission, all of the twenty strong garrison who weren't officers were Able Seaman, aquanauts who had been on at least one mission. Now there were only seven Able Seamen left, and with Dujardin injured he had been required to send one fresh faced rookie out on the recovery mission. They hadn't even been able to get a tenth set of armour for the chosen girl, Tatyana Samsenko. She would go into battle in a scuba suit.
The world map, which covered most of the sonar module's port wall, showed the location of the downed ships, two hundred miles west of Gibraltar, as well as the approaching Triton.
"How long until they arrive?"
"About half an hour."
"Sound the blue alert when they're five minutes away, I'm going down to the labs to see Dr Faustaus."
To get to the laboratory module, Zhadanovich had to traverse the floating connecting gangways. As he wobbled and swayed, he wondered how the hell Sharpe put up with it.
After searching the endless research bays and laboratories, paying particular interest to a half dissected Deep One corpse, he learnt that Faustaus was in Alien Containment, the next module along, meaning another trip down the gangways.
Alien Containment was little more than a prison. An eerily silent prison. The top deck was full of rows of tiny cells, where captured aliens sat, usually motionless, force fed through a surgical tube because they wouldn't accept nutrition any other way. It was down below, in the experimentation area, where the fun happened. Zhadanovich just thanked his lucky stars that the experimentation in the last alien war hadn't resulted in human rights being extended to captured aliens. Such was the paranoia of an escape that there were four guards on the single entrance to the containment facility.
Zhadanovich reached the centre of the module and climbed down a ladder through the tiny access port into the lower deck. He emerged in the control room. This provided the only access door to the containment area, which was a triple airlock constructed of the hardest compounds known to man. Beyond it was a series of experimentation rooms, including a shooting range where unwanted specimens were blasted with weapons to test their resistance.
The entire setup had been designed by Dr Faustaus, XCOM's scientist-in-chief. He was particularly proud of his method for moving the aliens around. They did not leave through the front doors of their cell, instead they were gassed and electrocuted until they fell unconscious, then they were dropped through a trapdoor in the floor of their cell. A research team would then drag them to whichever experimentation room was required. When the experiments were over, they would be either winched back up through the trapdoor, or taken to the shooting range.
Zhadanovich had only been beyond the airlock once, during Faustaus' tour at the module's activation. The doctor had crammed as much into the lower deck as he could, with the result that it was extremely claustrophobic. The corridors were barely shoulder width apart and the rooms had more square metres devoted to equipment than to floor space.
Faustaus was alone in the control room, sitting at a console with his eyes glued to the hundreds of monitors. It was possible to view every inch of every room in the module, but the doctor's gaze was focused on one room. Inside four scientists were working away on a Deep One, the only one they had ever captured alive.
The creature was in a bad way. The new Aqua Armour was derived from the compounds in its shell, and during the research its entire outer layer had been stripped away. Now the scientists had opened up its head and were poking about with needles and scalpels. Zhadanovich guessed that only the heavy titanium restraints prevented it from showing its displeasure.
"Hello Igor, I hear we've landed ourselves a big one," Zhadanovich suspected that, like all the scientists, Faustaus longed for a chance to go out into the field.
"Barely Toby, barely. Barracuda One was blown out of the water, and the USO only crashed because Barracuda Two went on a suicide attack."
"God," Faustaus though for a moment, "What, so it went down with Ajax? That shouldn't be possible."
"He released all twelve missiles at close to zero range, must have got lucky."
"Very lucky, I'll be wanting a full schematic of that ship wreck to see exactly how they did it. How did the sonic oscillator cope before it was destroyed?"
"We don't know, it never got a shot off. The USO blasted it as soon as it left number two's slipstream. It must have known it was there, and what weapons it was carrying."
"I wouldn't be surprised, from the results we're getting with the transmission resolver, alien sonar technology works down to the molecular level. Once we get it up and running we'll be able to achieve a 100% detection rate on all types of USOs within range, we'll be able to see how many and what type of alien is aboard, and we'll be able to see its mission and destination."
"So we'll finally have an underwater hyper-wave decoder," Zhadanovich sat down beside Faustaus. "Why have you got this guy open again? More armour research?"
"No," Faustaus looked grim, "Robbins spotted something during the dissection of one of the Deep One corpses so we thought we'd take another look at this guy. It seems the aliens do have Psionic ability."
"What!" Zhadanovic jumped up, "you assured me that there was no evidence of that!"
"There wasn't, because this is a much more advanced method of Psi control. It's not big implants controlled by Ethereals. Gillmen control Deep Ones on a molecular level, almost nanotechnological. We've just located the part of the brain where we think the transmitter is housed. I've got some of the boys to reverse engineer an alien artefact that might be their equivalent of the Mind Probe."
"What are the implications of this?"
"The same as Psionic," Faustaus shrugged, "our troops could be influenced to panic, go berserk, the weakest ones could even be mind controlled. The principle behind this is completely different though, I don't think any of our research or equipment from the First Alien War will be compatible."
Zhadanovich gave out a short, hollow laugh that echoed up through the module.
"It never is. Why haven't we seen the aliens use this yet?"
"Maybe they only use it to control their terrorists, not as an offensive weapon. Or, if it's like Psi, then maybe the aliens we've seen so far are too low-level to be allowed to use it."
"If this 'molecular control' is that similar to Psi, does that mean we can weaponize it?"
"Almost certainly."
"How long until the transmission resolver is online?"
"About a day, the module's all set up, all we have to do now is install the equipment."
"Then in twenty-five hours I want every single scientist on this base to start work on offensive molecular control. From what Sharpe's told me about the First War, we left the Psi research too late and it nearly cost us the Earth. We can't make that mistake this time."
"No sir."
Every light in the room flashed blue, and a droning klaxon sounded for five seconds.
"Blue alert," Zhadanovich stood up to leave, "you might want to patch into Tactical, Triton Four will be touching down in five minutes."
"Will do."
Maria Sharpe was not happy. Hooked up to the gigantic command console in the sonar module's tactical room, she was alone, eyes focused on the display before her. Sharpe had been a hero of the First Alien War. Amongst the first of the XCOM recruits, she had survived to the end, ranking behind only the General and Commander Nash. She had commanded Alpha Team, the most successful of the original XCOM's three strike teams, and when Nash was killed exiting the Avenger on Mars she had led Charlie Team's attack on the alien stronghold beneath Cydonia.
Chosen for their superior Psi resistance, even Charlie Team couldn't survive deep within the alien fortress, as the Alien Brain panicked and controlled them until one man managed to break into the inner sanctum and desolate the alien consciousness with a well placed blaster bomb.
Deep down, Sharpe had always felt it should have been her. It had been the third fire team who had located the Brain, but by then they had already turned on each other and there was only one undergunned squaddie left. Sharpe's team had been next in line to attack, and the Blaster Launcher had been on her shoulder when she was struck down by a blast of Psi, and her own team panicked around her. Eventually the second fire team, led by Sergeant Victor Zhadanovich, the Admiral's father, managed to finish the job.
The strength of the Psi attack had given Sharpe severe brain trauma, and a recurrence back on Earth paralysed the left side of her body, consigning her to a wheelchair. Despite being touted as a hero along with the rest of XCOM, all the British Army could offer her was a ceremonial position, and Sharpe retreated into obscurity for the next forty years. Now she was back.
"Tactical to Triton Four, amend your trajectory, you're drifting too far east!" Sharpe had done what she could with the limited information available on that part of the sea bed and picked a landing spot, but Remmington didn't seem to be heading for it.
"The currents are too strong, they're pushing us away!"
"Goddamit Lieutenant! Use the boosters!"
"This close to the bed?"
"If you don't you'll land on top of the damn thing! They'll shoot you as soon as you leave the ship!" Sharpe saw a flash of panic in Remmington's eyes. All ten squaddies and the Coelacanth tank were equipped with a mounted camera so she could see exactly what they saw, and at that moment Dreyfuss was looking straight at the Lieutenant. The eleven images were arranged around the top three sides of the main screen in front of her. This showed a map of the area, which at the moment was blank, aside from two markers showing the positions of the downed USO and the crashed Barracuda. From the survey charts, Sharpe knew that the Barracuda was near the edge of a deep ridge, and that there was probably a rise between the two ships.
Her landing position was near the Barracuda; this was for two reasons. Firstly, if they landed near the stricken XCOM vessel then they wouldn't have to send a separate team to secure it. Secondly, in that position the rise would block the view from the USO, lessening the chances of the aliens picking them off as they deployed. But because Remmington's hesitation meant it was now too late to use the boosters, they were going to land right where she thought the top of the rise was. Like sitting ducks!
Aboard the Triton, Tatyana Samsenko felt naked. Her flimsy scuba suit looked pitiful next to the thick Aqua armour of the other aquanauts. She could only hope that they wouldn't make her go out first. The Triton thudded down onto the sea bed. All ten aquanauts stood in silence as Sharpe ran the sonar sweep.
The Triton's sonar gave her a rough map of the area. It wasn't very detailed, but it was enough to see that she had been right about the Triton landing on top of the rise. The terrain looked very flat, with no structures and little in the way of weed. Nowhere for the aliens to hide, but nowhere to provide cover for them either.
"Okay Alpha Squad, due to the altered landing zone, it is going to be necessary to split into two fire teams, team one of eight, team two of two plus the tank. Team one will make the initial deploy, then form a skirmish line half a click across and advance on the USO. Team two will deploy afterwards and secure the Barracuda.
"I'll take team one," Remmington squeezed his way towards the double exit doors. "Ensign Dreyfuss, take team two. Samsenko, you'd better go in that one."
"Agreed," Dreyfuss moved to the back of the transport to stand next to the rookie. "The aliens have never made it two clicks out after being shot down, not in thirty minutes. We'll be okay. Let me know if you need sniper cover."
"That's not going to happen," Sharpe snapped over the microphone, "check your map Ensign, you'll be on the wrong side of the ridge." Dreyfuss didn't reply.
Sharpe watched on the screens as fire team one went through the well rehearsed routine of disembarking the Triton. They came out two at a time, a legacy from a mission where five rookies had been butchered in a grenade blast two paces away from the exit hatch. Remmington was out first, back to back with Guido Curtis. The Triton had come down with the exit hatch facing towards the USO, so they just had to march down the rise and take up their positions at the base, fifty metres apart. Even with their night vision on maximum, both they and Sharpe could only see about one hundred metres ahead.
Something blue flicked on Curtis's screen. Sharpe had zoomed in on it in a second.
"Guido did you see that?"
"What?" Sharpe zoomed right in, just in time to see a greenish shape, about half the size of a human, disappear into the gloom.
"Looks like an Aquatoid." There was a laugh from Remmington.
"Thank god for that!"
Aquatoids were the little green men of the alien races. They had been the first undersea race to be encountered and, despite still terrorizing the civilian population, their unarmoured hides were a welcome sight to an XCOM strike team. They didn't even seem to have their own variant of murderous terrorist, like the Gillmen's Deep Ones or the Lobstermen's Bio-drones.
Remmington thought his partner looked like he was shaking.
"Okay Guido?"
"Yeah fine, just feel a little…" The Lieutenant noticed another blue flicker up ahead. Before he could raise his own weapon a green beam of sonic shot overhead, hitting right where he had seen the alien.
"Good shot Rudi!" Sharpe had obviously zoomed in to confirm the hit. Remmington turned round to see the next two aquanauts halfway down the rise. As per normal procedure they took his and Guido's places and they moved further out. This continued until all eight of the first fire team were in a long skirmish line, with Curtis at the far north, and Remmington at the far south.
Sharpe could see nothing in the screens; they were too far from the USO to even see the outline.
"Second fire team, deploy. Don't forget the recovery buoy."
"Affirmative." The tank rolled out first, skirting round to the other side of the Triton to make sure it was clear. Then Dreyfuss and Samsenko went round on opposite sides of the ship.
There was a reason for Dreyfuss' curt tone towards Sharpe. His uncle had been Captain Bernard Dreyfuss, 2 i/c of Alpha Team during the First Alien War. Despite his low Psi Strength, he had been taken on the Cydonia mission. He and Sharpe had been the first to reach the elevator pyramid that led into the alien fortress, but once there he had been taken over by the aliens' Psi technology. Sharpe had shot him in the back without a second thought.
Henri Dreyfuss had not been born until ten years after his uncle's death, but the legends of the First Alien War were well known, and the Dreyfuss family still harboured a resentment towards Sharpe for not trying to stun him instead. Since Henri had been recruited, not long after the start of the Second War, he had not spoken to Sharpe apart from over the radio.
Sharpe was more concerned about the fact that the sonar sweep had not detected the presence of the ridge, which she knew was nearby. She relayed this information to Dreyfuss and Samsenko as they paced towards the Barracuda, keeping a good distance from the Coelacanth tank as it scouted ahead, partly controlled by Sharpe and partly by its own computer systems. At the start of the war the Coelacanths, with their heavy armour and near 100% accurate weaponry, had been indispensable, but now they were mainly used as scouts by the heavily armed aquanauts. However the seamen still managed to hold them in some affection, particularly if their actions happened to save a human's life. The one ahead of Dreyfuss and Samsenko was the longest-serving yet, this being its tenth mission. Its armour was covered with scratches indicating the number of aliens it had killed.
Once the Barracuda appeared in the tank's field of vision, Sharpe ordered the first team to advance. It would be a slow process, in such open terrain they couldn't take any risks, and with any luck the Barracuda would soon be secured and the second fire team could join the skirmish line.
"How's it looking team two?"
"Er, not good," Samsenko sounded extremely nervous.
The tank's view screen showed why. The Barracuda had not only landed near the ridge, it was right on the edge. The nose of the ship was way out over the abyss, with only the weight of the rear engines stopping the whole thing from tumbling over the side.
"Get to securing it fast," Sharpe snapped, "if the reactor's damaged then it might not survive a tumble like that!"
"Good thinking Colonel," there was just enough sarcasm in Dreyfuss' voice. He and Samsenko came right up to the Barracuda's engines, leaving the tank to keep watch over the surroundings.
"She looks intact," Samsenko spoke; her voice had lost its shakiness. "The crew have diving gear right?"
"Yes."
"So where are they?"
"Probably shitting themselves. If I was dangling over that thing I wouldn't move an inch!"
Samsenko had been dragging the huge backpack that held the buoyancy kit behind her, and she dropped it to the ground. Dreyfuss was examining the Barracuda.
"I can walk along the top of the ship, drop down into the cockpit and see what the damage is." Samsenko looked around at the barren seabed.
"There's nowhere to tie the guide ropes."
"We'll use the Coley." As if hearing this the tank rolled over to them. "Give it just enough power to counteract my weight." Samsenko guessed he was talking to Sharpe. She attached both guide ropes to the back of the tank, then fastened them to the Barracuda. The tank rolled about twenty metres away, ready to brace against Dreyfuss' weight.
The Ensign climbed up the ship's engines until he was standing on the hull, then started walking down towards the cockpit. Behind him, Samsenko started attaching the recovery balloon to the ship.
The Barracuda's entrance hatch was on the side of the ship, right at the front. To get in, Dreyfuss slung his sonic rifle over his back, lay on the hull and leaned over until he could open the airlock upside down, trying not to think about the thousands of black fathoms beneath him. Once it was open he climbed down and shut the door behind him. To his surprise the airlock started draining the water automatically.
"Looks like the cabin is still pressurized." He glanced down at the panel beside the inner door. The buttons were lit. "And the power is on."
"Okay, proceed with caution."
"Yeah yeah."
Dreyfuss didn't bother to grab his rifle, as soon as the airlock had drained he opened the inner door and walked into the cockpit. He was nearly sick inside his helmet. The place was untouched, all computer displays were operational, the lights were all on.
The bodies of the two pilots were on the floor, unrecognisable. They had been battered to a pulp, their innards smeared across the metal floor. There was a flicker in the corner of Dreyfuss' eye.
The Ensign's blood curdling screams were not what the first fire team needed to hear. The normal procedure for USO assaults was for the skirmish line to encircle the downed craft, picking off any aliens on the outside, and then enter, preferably through a hole in the hull made by Barracuda weapons.
This USO was so large that Sharpe soon realized that encircling it would leave every single aquanaut isolated, easy pickings even for Aquatoids. Instead she had ordered the team to split in two. Four would stay back and provide sniper cover and four would edge around the craft's hull, using it as a cover until they found a way in.
Remmington led the scouting four in an anti-clockwise direction around the ship, and as the entrance was on the north side they pretty much had to encircle it anyway. They only came across one more Aquatoid, standing alone beside the entrance, and four sonic beams soon took care of it, allowing them to form up either side of the entrance hatch, which was on the first floor of the ship, accessible only up a flight of stairs. Once the scout team was in position, the snipers moved up to cover them as Remmington prepared for the attack.
"Okay," the Lieutenant removed a sonic pulser, the humanized version of the alien grenades that had proved so deadly at the start of the war, from his belt. "I'm going to throw a grenade through that door, if there's any Aquatoids waiting for us on the other side, they'll be dead before they can scream." Remmington activated the grenade, oblivious to Curtis raising his plasma rifle. Nobody could see the emptiness of the Able Seamen's eyes as he pulled the trigger.
"Aghhh!" Remmington doubled over as the beam tore through his armour and into his abdomen, his suit depressurizing around him as his diving helmet shattered.
"Guido what are you doing!" The other two aquanauts jumped on Curtis, trying to wrestle the rifle from him as their Lieutenant writhed on the sea bed. It was then that Dreyfuss' death screams pierced the radio waves.
The sniper team couldn't believe what they were seeing. Rudi Brehme yelled into his helmet.
"Colonel, what the hell's happening!" Sitting in the tactical room, Sharpe knew exactly what was happening.
"Psi control! Curtis's been Psi controlled. Shoot him!"
"Psi control? But Colonel…"
"Now!"
The three aquanauts were still fighting, and Brehme brought his rifle up to his eyeline.
"Shit, which one is he?" Jason Tarantino, one of the other snipers, suddenly had a thought.
"What happened to the grenade Sam was holding?"
Brehme just had time to yell 'get down' before the sonic pulser exploded, vaporizing the four struggling aquanauts and blowing the entrance hatch back into the ship. The sniper team were thrown back ten metres, but all four of them instinctively fired straight into the open hole, hoping to hit anything that had survived the blast. Twenty sonic beams had streaked into the ship before Sharpe called a halt.
"Ceasefire! Form a defensive position and place your primary weapons on the ground!"
"What?"
"Able Seaman Brehme are you aware of the implications of Psionic technology?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Then you will obey my order immediately. If any you pick up your weapon without stating the month of your birth the others are to shoot them immediately, is that clear?"
"Yes Colonel."
"Able Seaman Brehme you are now in command of this mission."
"Thank you ma'am."
Sharpe turned her attention to the lone rookie.
"Seaman Samsenko please report." Samsenko was perched on the edge of the ridge, praying that the tank would watch her back.
"There's something in there Colonel."
"I am aware of that, keep that entrance covered. In the meantime I will be… look out!"
It was the tank that saved her. It had rolled in to investigate some movement on the other side of the ship, and was just close enough to burst into the space between the rookie and the charging alien. It was a diving suit, human in appearance except for the blank glass where the face should have been, the speed with which it moved, and the huge steel claws emerging from the arms.
Samsenko turned round just in time to see it crash into the tank, its steel claws mangling the tracks on the right side as it pummelled away at the fresh obstacle. Suddenly it seemed to realize its true prey and jumped over the tank almost too fast to see. Samsenko didn't aim, she just fired.
When she opened her eyes the creature was lying on the floor, still alive, but thrown back out of harms way by the sonic blast. It thrashed wildly as green ooze leaked from the rip in its suit. All the extra movement seemed to just make it leak faster, until all that was left was a cloud of green floating over an empty diving suit.
"Good shooting."
"What the hell was that?"
There was no answer from her earpiece. Samsenko glanced down at the left side of her diving suit. It was torn open, exposing twisted electrical circuitry. The creature must have missed disembowelling her by millimetres.
"Come in Samsenko, I have lost you on visual," the radio was obviously only working one way. "Shit." The young rookie cursed in her native language and turned back towards the Barracuda, which was now wobbling slightly. She was just in time to see a second yellow diving suit come clambering out of the airlock…
Back at the downed USO, Brehme and his team had surrounded the gap in the hull where the entrance hatch had been. It took four sonic pulsers before they were willing to enter.
The grenades had done their work. The first floor of the ship was simply a series of gantries overlooking the bottom deck, and three dead Aquatoids lay slumped over the railings.
"Keep sharp." The four men edged round the perimeter of the ship, their eyes searching for movement on either of the visible levels. From what they could see, the lower level housed the engines at the rear and a vast cargo bay at the front. And they could see most of it, because whatever was down there had obviously detonated on impact during the skirmish with Barracuda Two, taking the engines and most of the walls with it. Apart from the indiscriminate Aquatoid remains that were smeared around the lower deck there were no signs of life, so they moved slowly towards the lift at the centre of the gantries.
Although Brehme and Tarantino were veterans, the other pair were comparative rookies, although both had risen to Able Seamen. The first, Tim Thompson, was something of a protégé of Tarantino's. They always trained together and usually served as a pair on missions, this was Thompson's fourth, and some of his peers were beginning to suspect that Tarantino was covering somewhat for his younger partner. There were no such doubts about the other aquanaut, Alfredo Quevedo. This may have been only his second mission, but he already had a kill count of six. His first mission had been to defend an alien terror attack on Antigua. Expected to be a fairly routine mission, they had hit a snag when the commanding Ensign and all five Able Seamen had been killed in a grenade ambush on leaving the Triton. Despite calls to pull out, Quevedo had managed to lead a group of five Seamen, all rookies, to victory, albeit losing two more in the process. He was being touted as next in line for promotion to Ensign, a position which was now open with the demise of Remmington and Dreyfuss.
Tarantino and Thompson volunteered to go up the top deck first, wedging themselves in the corners of the lift to lessen the risk of an ambush. It seemed fine, but then Thompson went to peer round the side of the lift chamber and caught a full sonic cannon blast in the left arm.
"Arghh, motherfucker!" in his rage he jumped out into the corridor, somehow dodging the Aquatoid's second shot, and liquefied the alien's head with his sonic rifle. Tarantino was right behind his protégé.
"Get back, get back!" They were in a dangerous position. The lift opened out onto a T-junction, with two hatches and one double door that they couldn't hope to cover without risking getting shot in the back.
"Tim get back!" The double doors slid open, revealing two Aquatoids who each fired at the aquanauts. Thompson's armour absorbed the shot, but Tarantino's attacker found a chink down the side, and clouds of blood started spurting out.
Two beams shot out of the lift, taking down the two Aquatoids, and Brehme and Quevedo emerged. The double doors were revealed to lead out onto the roof of the ship, so Brehme ordered Quevedo and Thompson to guard the hatches.
"I, I can't…" Thompson hesitated.
"Thompson, take up guard!" Brehme had already unpacked his medikit and was desperately trying to prise off Tarantino's armour. The wounded man's protégé turned and faced the hatch. Sharpe reminded them all to keep their weapons on the ground, and remember their birth month.
"How's it looking Brehme?" Rudi managed to prise off the armour plating, only to be greeted with a cross section of Tarantino's abdomen.
"Not good, the wound's too big for me to cauterize. Is there anyone left to take him back to the ship?"
"Negative, we have lost all contact with the second fire team. Just dope him up and finish sweeping the ship. Thompson what are you doing?"
"April," Quevedo picked up his gun and swung round to see Thompson doing the same thing, but he couldn't quite bring himself to carry out Sharpe's order. He was rewarded for his hesitation with a blast of sonic to his face.
"Jesus!" Brehme leapt out of the way of Thompson's next shot, but it caught him on the back of the head. Despite the armour, the impact was still enough to knock him for six, and he slumped against the far wall. Thompson went to finish him off but stopped when he saw that Tarantino, his insides still leaking out into the ocean, was reaching for his sonic rifle. The protégé turned his gun on the master, but then seemed to hesitate.
"Tim," Tarantino's voice was weak and raspy. "Don't do this Tim, you've got to fight." Sharpe's voice rang out:
"He's just out of ammo, shoot him, quick!" Thompson had slammed a fresh clip into his rifle and blown Tarantino away before he could even consider it.
Rudi could see it all, but he couldn't feel his limbs, and a great feeling of dread was creeping over him. His sonic cannon was over by his medikit, behind Thompson, and the rogue aquanaut raised his rifle up at Rudi's head. The Able Seaman closed his eyes.
He heard a burst of sonic fire, but didn't feel the burning pain. Opening his eyes, he saw Thompson's lifeless body slumping to the floor. Samsenko stood behind him, trailing electrical wire and wearing the bottom half of Dreyfuss' Aqua armour. She kept her weapon pointed at Brehme as she stepped forward, taking out her hardline communication cable and plugging it into the socket on Brehme's belt. He still had the feeling of dread, and knew he was on the verge of panicking.
"Thought you were dead."
"No, just got hit in the communications. How are you?"
"Just stunned," Brehme went to get up, but found his legs were shaking too much. "And I think they've started to go to work on me, Psi-wise."
"Panic attack?" Samsenko had read all the info on Psionic technology. "Or mind control?"
"Panic. I hope," Brehme felt the adrenaline coursing through his heart. Samsenko bent down to pick up his cannon, he went to stop her but was nowhere near quick enough as she removed the ammo and clipped it to her belt.
"I'd better take this then, don't want you shooting me in the back."
"Seaman Samsenko!" Sharpe's voice came over the link. "What is your status? Is that Dreyfuss' armour?"
"I'm okay," Samsenko was preoccupied covering all three doors. "There was another of those things in the Barracuda; I managed to take it out. Went in to find Dreyfuss, did you see what happened to the Barracuda crew?"
"Yes."
"Same thing happened to him. I thought I should take the bottom of his armour. The top half wasn't usable."
"I see. Are you fit to complete the mission alone?"
"Affirmative."
"I don't think there should be that many more aliens. If this Psi is anything like the kind used in the First Alien War, and it might not be, then there is probably a single Aquatoid leader making all the attacks. I'd guess he'd be on the bridge."
"And I'd guess that would be near the front," Samsenko turned towards the north hatch.
"Wait. Do you have a sonic pulser?"
"Just the one."
"If you find the bridge, don't take any risks, toss it in. We're beyond scavenging now."
"Affirmative."
Samsenko walked towards the hatch.
"Cover my back sir." Brehme snorted.
"What happens if something comes through the other hatch?"
"Yell out on the radio and then play dead. I can hear you, you just can't hear me." With that Samsenko walked far enough to pull the hardline from its socket, and she disappeared through the hatch.
Using all her training, she moved cautiously towards the front of the ship, ignoring any side passages. Coming up to a slightly more prestigious looking hatch, which she guessed led to the bridge, she took out her pulser and armed it. Then she opened the hatch and threw it as far as she could.
Knowing that the best time to strike was straight after the explosion, she dived through the hatch just as the bang was fading. She came up to find nothing of any threat. The navigation computer had exploded as well, aiding the demise of the two Aquatoids operating it. Over by the bow porthole another writhed, still alive but obviously in a lot of pain. Samsenko fought the urge to finish it off as she walked over. In the creatures hand was a device that she had not seen before, not in the research papers or amongst the dozens of recovered artefacts yet to be researched. It was pretty obvious that it was something to do with the Psi attacks. Samsenko stood on the leader's arm until it loosened its grip, then picked the thing up for a closer look…