Chapter 2
Zhadanovich and Faustaus were aboard the SS Euphrates, a huge converted oil tanker that had anchored two hundred miles west of Gibraltar, directly over the downed USO. The Euphrates was XCOM's covert recovery ship, tasked with delivering recovered USOs to MED ALPHA. Unlike in the First Alien War, delivery of any kind to the base was extremely problematic. It had been easy enough back then, when bases were hidden underground in remote areas, close enough to a small runway for constant resupply.
MED Alpha's modules floated on the surface of the Med, away from the shipping lanes, and were loosely bound together by the gangways and anchored to the sea floor. The only way in was through the main airlock and the sub pens, which were grouped together at the east side of the base, with a single storage module separating them from the other modules, creating a choke point in case of alien infiltration. When a downed or landed USO was cleared of all alien life, the Euphrates was diverted to its position. Whereas in the First War downed UFOs were on land, and could be dismantled where they lay, it was virtually impossible to salvage a USO on the sea bed.
Only a tiny part of the supertanker's hold was given over to oil, and this was only a cover. Below the main deck was a vast open space, designed to be able to hold the largest battleship encountered during the First Alien War. Once anchored over the downed USO, the entire floor of the hold could slide open to reveal the sea beneath. A set of eight cranes were built into the roof of the hold, and the Euphrates' diving team would attach their cables to the USO, enabling it to be winched up into the hold without anyone one the surface noticing what was happening.
Zhadanovich and Faustaus had come out by helicopter to see the recovery of the biggest USO yet. Fortunately the Eurphrates had just been leaving the Mediterranean, and the ship had been at the crash site in a few hours. The Admiral and the Doctor were standing on one of the gantries overlooking the hold. It was an unnerving sight, seeing the sea in the bottom of a ship.
"Looks like they've attached the winches," Faustaus said as the cranes whirred into action. "Hope they can take the weight."
"They'll be fine," Zhadanovich watched as the salvage teams gathered around the water's edge, looking down, waiting for the delivery. In the near right corner a yellow and black head bobbed up out of the water. A frogman climbed up into the hold and, after kicking off his flippers, started walking towards them.
It was Jones, the captain of the Euphrates. Quite rotund for a swimmer, he was breathless by the time he got to the top of the gantry.
"That's a big one you've got down there. We've never had to use all eight cranes before!"
"You'll manage," Zhadanovich watched as the other seven divers bobbed up in the pool. "How long do you think it'll take to strip her down?"
"Longer than it'll take us to get back to MED ALPHA."
"I'd take the long route then," said Faustaus, "throw everyone off the scent a bit, we've already got everything that we urgently need out of her."
Security on the Euphrates was watertight. Jones did all the navigation himself, so that none of the rest of the crew knew exactly where they were until they put into port. After visiting MED ALPHA Jones would take days to visit somewhere as close as Alexandria just to throw people the wrong way. When they were on land, the eight divers and ten salvagers who sailed on the Euphrates pretended to be ignorant journeymen, barely even worthy of the rank of merchant seaman.
When the Euphrates arrived at MED ALPHA it could dock at one of the three sub pens, provided a flying sub was out on patrol. If not then all the salvaged alien artefacts had to go in through the air lock. Unloading them and moving it all about the base was a nightmare, especially as the newest storage modules were about as far away from the airlock as they could get.
"Whose supplies are you giving us this time?" Zhadanovich changed the subject as the cranes seemed to struggle.
"Africa Corp's, there were three big containers waiting for us in Tangiers. I checked 'em out on the way over here, hope you like dates."
"Love them."
As soon as the USO was above water, the hold doors closed and the ships engines started. Jones headed upstairs to program in his creative heading and Zhadanovich and Faustaus climbed up to the helipad. As XCOM's commanders-in-chief, they were the only personnel allowed to leave the base. For all the other people stationed there since the start of the war the only chances to escape duty were the facilities in the living quarters, unless they wanted to try swimming or exploring the sea bed, which many were resorting to.
Although he knew the others wouldn't like to hear it, Zhadanovich found going back to dry land tedious. Like all XCOM recruits, his family and friends had been told he was Missing In Action, though as his father had fought in the First Alien War and undergone the same thing, he knew that his would probably not believe it. Therefore the only places he went were either the Euphrates or the monthly conference of XCOM's sponsor nations.
Neither were worth the hassle of leaving and returning to MED ALPHA. Unless, like today, they were in helicopter range of the base, they would have a flight to Nice to retrieve their chopper and then set off for the helipad on the top of MED ALPHA's airlock.
Soon they were walking down the gangway between the airlock and the lone storage module, dripping wet thanks to a wave crashing over the helipad.
"I'm sick of this."
"Well look on the bright side. If things go the way of the first war then we'll have about eight bases by the end. You'll be flitting between them all the time."
"Or maybe we could just get seven more Admirals." They passed over the vast warehouse of the storage module and entered the main living quarters, after climbing down several ladders they arrived at the office block.
There were four offices, one in each corner of the block, which was located right at the bottom of the quarters module, hence the reason why they were rarely used. Zhadanovich held one office, Sharpe another, the third had been Lieutenant Remmington's and the fourth was for the Ensigns. Zhadanovich was pretty sure that he'd never seen an Ensign inside the fourth office, mainly because their high turnover rate made it pointless to settle in.
Zhadanovich's office was really only used as a place to stockpile all the reports and other pieces of paper that people kept sending him. Anything else he could do up in Sonar. He dropped Jones' latest ship manifest onto a pile of similar documents.
"If the auditors ever come down here you're going to be in big trouble!" laughed Faustaus.
"We might be in trouble anyway," Zhadanovich slumped into his chair and pulled a bottle of vodka out of his top drawer. Faustaus declined a glass as he sat down. "I'm pulling the plug on the new base developments." Faustaus immediately regretted not accepting the drink.
"You can't be serious Admiral, we need a separate research facility, and the alien activity around the Americas is too great to ignore."
"Don't think I didn't mention that at the conference," laughed Zhadanovich, " but the Americans are so annoyed with our inability to cover them that they're cutting the funds that were going to pay for our base off California. And the Brazillian money was going to finance the research base, and that's gone too. As it is I've got just about enough to keep this base going and keep the men equipped."
"We need to start selling the alien gear."
"No!" Zhadanovich remembered the years after the First War. Terrorist groups armed with plasma weapons, alien grenades exploding on disputed subway systems. It was one of the main reasons that XCOM had been shut down so quickly, and it wasn't going to happen this time.
"Sir, I appreciate the ethical implications but…" Faustaus searched for a reasoning that wouldn't make him sound like a complete bastard, "what's worse, a few guerrillas getting iced by some dictator's new sonic toys, or the entire world being wiped out apart from a small circle around the Mediterranean?" Zhadanovich grunted.
"I've done a feasibility study. Some of the things we haven't got round to researching will make big money. The cloning vats, the alien food, they're all none lethal and yet we're using huge amounts of the storage space to keep them. Sell them off and we'd save enough space be able to dismantle a storage module, and we'd have enough cash to start up two new bases."
"This is with none lethal technology only?"
"Yes."
Zhadanovich sat back.
"Okay. Speak to the Quartermaster and have him load it all into containers ready for the Euphrates. I'll leave the buyers up to you, but if anything sonic goes through that airlock then by the time I'm finished with you you'll be teaching chemistry in Hell's Kitchen!"
"Fine," grinned Faustaus, "are you still set on California for a second base."
"That's what I'm telling the committee, but I think we'd do better in the Yellow Sea, then we'd have a presence in the Pacific. We'll be close to more sponsors as well."
"YELLOW BRAVO, catchy."
The entire XCOM staff were gathered in Triton Four's sub pen. Following the massacre at the large USO, the only remaining aquanauts with any combat experience were Dujardin, Brehme and Samsenko. Seven more Seamen had been called up to add to the batch that Samsenko had been drawn from, so the garrison was twenty strong.
Zhadanovich always found it odd that the scientists and the workshop technicians, fifty of each plus the five sonar techies, so outnumbered the combatants. He and Sharpe were atop the Triton, turned into a makeshift platform by the addition of a wobbly plank up onto its roof. Everyone was in full dress uniform. For himself and the troops, excluding Sharpe, this meant naval clothes and insignia modelled on the Royal Navy, which supplied all the XCOM outfits. The scientists wore a similar uniform in white, which everyone said made them look like strippers at a hen night, and the technicians wore red.
The gathering had two purposes. Firstly it was to commemorate the deceased on the wall of remembrance. The far wall of the sub pen had been covered in concrete, and the names of the deceased were etched in columns by rank, along with number of missions and kills, if they had gotten a chance to make any. The column for Seamen had filled up so quickly that the names had been scrubbed off and re-etched in a smaller font.
Originally they had held full funeral rites for the deceased, but there were so many casualties that this had got too depressing to bear. Instead the bodies were shipped back to the families with the truth of the deceased's XCOM service, and after this simple service life went on.
Zhadanovich waited for the last of the cadet guard, the Seamen who had recently completed training and were assigned to base defence while awaiting their call up to the Alpha Squad, to file in before he spoke.
"Let us all bow our heads in a minute of silence for our eight fallen comrades: Lieutenant Samuel Remmington, Ensign Henri Dreyfuss, Able Seaman Guido Curtis, Able Seaman Guido Moreland, Able Seaman Alfredo Quevedo, Able Seaman Siegfried Siedler, Able Seaman Jason Tarantino, Able Seaman Tim Thompson." After the minutes silence, with the Mediterranean winds whistling through the pen gates, he moved straight on.
"In a climate such as this, all of us need leaders. All of us need a strong, brave face to look upon in times of crisis, to give us courage, and pull us through. Whether we are part of the last two descending into the bowels of an alien submarine, or the first off the landing zone amongst the horrors of a terror site, we look upon our leaders to get us through to the other side. Amongst you now stand people who will lead you, who will inspire, and it is those people who will now be honoured with the promotions they deserve."
Zhadanovich drew breath. Not bad, he thought, short and sweet, doesn't look like anyone's squirming down there. Zhadanovich turned to Sharpe, who sat at the top of the ramp.
"Colonel Sharpe, are you ready to present the new badges of office?"
"Yes Admiral."
"Very well. As you are all aware, the position of Lieutenant is now open. Among you all today I think you will agree that there is one person who most deserves this accolade. Lieutenant Remmington held this position from its inception to his end, and there is no one better to follow in his footsteps than our first officer, the man who wrestled a Lobsterman and won, Ensign Louis Dujardin!"
Cheers and whistles accompanied the applause that followed Dujardin up the ramp. Now fully healed, the French-Algerian was a terrifying figure. Six foot six, with his bronze skin containing muscles on top of muscles and hair shaved down to the blue roots, he didn't even need the eye patch to look frightening.
At the top of the ramp, Zhadanovich saluted him and relieved him of his jacket, which bore the arm and shoulder insignia of an Ensign. It was replaced with a Lieutenant's jacket, the rank symbolized by a chain slung across XCOM's anchor emblem. Maria Sharpe handed him the ceremonial chain, the mark of the Lieutenant which Remmington had taken to wearing as a belt, though rumour had it that Dujardin was planning to wrap it round his neck.
Once the Lieutenant had returned to his position in the front row Zhadanovich announced that Able Seaman Rudi Brehme was to be promoted to Ensign. Once Sharpe had handed over a baton to the still limping Brehme everyone on the pen floor started to get restless, wanting Samsenko to get up their and collect the knife that marked her promotion to Able Seaman so they could get back to the quarters and party.
"There is one more promotion today, and it may come as a surprise to some of you, but it shouldn't. Colonel Sharpe and myself do not consider it acceptable for there to be only two officers amongst a garrison of twenty, and considering her outstanding performance in the recent USO Recovery Mission I have no hesitation in directly promoting Seaman Tatyana Samsenko to the rank of Ensign."
Samsenko beamed as she made her way up the ramp amidst stunned applause. She had expected that she would receive the ceremonial knife as much as anybody, and for a Seaman to be promoted straight into the officer class was unprecedented! As she put on the jacket with the three bars representing the Ensign rank and received the ceremonial baton from Colonel Sharpe she didn't even think of the huge pressure of leading an entire squad into battle with the aliens…