Four

January 19, another alien sub landed, 300 kilometers off the coast of Ghana. News of Daphne Sixx's nearly fatal experience spread through the base like Captain Trips. A medium sized scout had put their second-best ace in a coma, and she was currently in the infirmary under the watchful eye of Kurt Kissinger. "Kiss" as the Sacred Tear's personnel liked to call him, was a good doctor; but the best he'd been able to do was to simply keep her from being dead. He had no idea how long she'd be in the coma (the death-sleep it was called), and there was no point in even lying to people by given them in estimate.

Triton-1's pilot tried not to think of any of it. Worrying about Rainbow—a right bitch she was but good at what she did—would not help anything.

Now, the Triton's pilot looked over her shoulder. She informed the Divers that they would be setting down in the dead of night, and every single last one of them groaned in frustration. They were all seaman, and that was problem number one. There was no commanding officer to work as a buffer against panic. The people who had assaulted the previous submarine and survived were all still fatigued.

Debbie Genin, Susie Parks, Richard Third, Quentin Watson, Larry Zander , Bobby Reids, and Sasha Putin had at least two weeks worth of training in the barracks. Below the rooms where they all slept was the football field-sized transparent box known as the Battle Zone. Every two days, these seven were drilled in the Battle Zone against automated drones.

The other seven, Peter Easton, Kurt Deniker, and Erik Heinrich, Haru Ichiro, and Ryo Nanaba and Henry O'Leary had come to the base that very same day. They had an hour at most in the Battle Zone. Ryo hadn't even been able to hit anything. It usually took about a week in the Zone for it to judge their combat ability.

This alien sub, similar in size to a large scout UFO, was dubbed the Cruiser. Just like the Large Scout, XCOM marines could look forward to enemy numbers ranging from a half dozen to a full dozen. They would perhaps be Aquatoids again. That's what the scientists called these new underwater Sectoids.

That's what Triton-1's pilot hoped anyway. It was nearly the end of January. During the first month, Floaters had shown up the first month along with Sectoids, at around this time. In some places on Earth, Floaters had been seen before Sectoids. Floaters had slightly better combat performance, health, and they could fly; but Sectoids were the bigger threat when there were leaders around to fuck you up with psychic attacks.

Aquatoids probably had something like that, and the pilot was pleased as punch she wouldn't be in the shit storm that would result.

It really was dark. Even the large headlights, the size and strength of those of an 18-wheeler, couldn't pierce the darkness that well.

The pilot looked over her shoulder. "You guys have flares right?"

Easton looked around the Triton floor. "Ummmm…."

"Look for it dipshit." Ryo said, shortly.

"Fuck you Sushi." Easton replied, not even looking at the guy.

Ryo stood up. "What the hell did you call me?"

"Are you all fucking children?" The Triton's pilot roared. "Shut the fuck up and YOU, sit down."

Ryo's eyes bugged. For a moment, the pilot thought he would try and take a poke at her. That was fine: she was a lot stronger than she looked, and people like Ryo always ended up learning the hard way. He grumbled something, and then sat his happy ass back down.

"Have the new stun rods come in?" Susie Parks asked.

"They're the tazers you see right there." Easton pointed to them. The rather than gun-metal orange, they were

"Next to the hydro-jet cannons." Richard Third indicated. He and Debbie Genin were rated for heavy weapons, so picked up the first hydro-jet. Debbie reached for second. They were both strong enough to carry two extra clips along with the ones in their guns, hardly an easy feat.

Quentin Watson was the heaviest, and so he carried a torpedo launcher. He had not one but two dart guns as a backup, with an extra clip on his belt. Aquatoids wouldn't be able to stand against that kind of firepower.

Most everyone else had the jet harpoon rifle. Susie Parks and Haru hand magnablast grenades strapped to their shoulders.
"Something just occurred to me." Haru began. Everybody looked at him, and he immediately got nervous and stammered out his next sentence. "Well….uh….I was thinking…uh, it wouldn't make s-s-suh-sense for them to give us f-flares."

"What're you talking about." Quentin asked. He was examining a magnapack.

"Because you can't throw things underwater." Haru continued. "That shit doesn't make any sense right?"

"I guess." said Larry Zander. He was the quiet one: it was a notable thing that Zander had talked at all.

"Look, see here?" Haru indicated the orange rounds scattered on the Triton floor. "Phosphorous rounds."

"How do you figure?" Easton asked.

"It says so on the clips." Haru said simply, bent down towards one. He picked one up, with its fat, bright slugs. "This is one for the gas cannon."

"This is for the hydro-jet." Haru said, picking up the clip with the thinner orange rounds. He threw a pair of them to Debbie Genin and Richard Third, who took them gratefully.

Quentin picked up a rocket, one of the only two orange ones on the floor. Only it was their middle that was orange, and hollowed out, so that the liquid chemicals inside of it could be seen.

"This is for me I reckon." he said. "Bit heavy though."

"J-just leave one of the regular rockets on the floor until you need it." Haru said nervously.

"That's good thinking Ichiro."

Haru smiled nervously.

"Say…you know how to use that thing right?" Quentin asked him. He'd noticed the awkward way Haru Ichiro was holding the harpoon rifle.

"Uh…yes?"

"Then maybe stop pointing it at Ryo, won't you?"

Haru got quite a few jeers from the others.

The darkness of the ocean was thick and deep. As Debbie Genin looked into it, she was reminded about that old Nietzsche quote: the one about the abyss staring back into you.

But it's not the abyss staring back, she thought, realizing for the first time since dust off that her heart was racing inside her chest. She felt the burn of eyes from the dark—they were red-hot and as they settled on Genin, on her face, they narrowed from wide circles of alarm into narrowed slits of flat hatred.

Or maybe that was just her imagination.

The phosphorous made the first two minutes relatively standard. The heavy weapon users went out first: the gas cannon and hydro-jet users went out together. Quentin would be backing them up with the torpedo launcher.

"I'll put some light out." Quentin said. He leveled the torpedo launcher.

"No!" Debbie cried out. "Don't fire that shit off when we're all still here in the sub!"

Quentin put the launcher down, an embarrassed grin on his face.

Richard Third put a hand up. "Let me first."

He fired a phosphorous into the black. There was a bloom of light. And fire. The water was on fire.

Specifically, the pink coral reef on the port side of their Triton. It was spreading out from the seabed in bright, groping fingers. As the phosphorous flames touched them and spread, the reef-fingers flailed like whips.

"Cool. " Easton said, open-mouthed.

"Stop standing around gawking like a bunch of retards!" Ryo Nanaba roared. He shoved Richard and Debbie forward. They swam out throwing curses back at him. Ryo showed them the finger and told them to get a move on.

They fanned out, Richard and Debbie turning left and heading to the stern of the ship. Quentin followed them out. He fired a blind shot into the flaming coral reef. The explosion was large, but the scream that followed it was even louder. It was different from that of the Aquatoids. The pitch was mostly similar but sounded angrier, almost like a roar.

None of them kept their eyes on the coral reef. So when a green blast shot out of it, they were all taken by surprise.

It was a larger, heavier sound than that of a sonic pistol. The sound was heavier, heartier. It sounded like a thin gong being struck.

The shot went from one end of Easton's shoulder to the other. He was perhaps dead before the shot exited his body. Kurt Denniker had been the one closest to him.

"Nein!" he cried out, sweeping his rifle in an arc in front of him. "Fuck they got one of us already!"

The upper half of Easton's body hit the port side of the Triton with a hollow thumping sound, and rose up into the depths. His blood spilled out everywhere, spreading like a sickening fog. Denniker recoiled away from it, but the legs brushed up against him, causing him to misfire his harpoon rifle.

The harpoon clipped Richard Third's helmet. It'd done nothing more than clip it. It hadn't even cracked it.

It didn't matter.

Richard screamed and opened fire with the hydro-jet. He'd forgotten that the only had phosphorous rounds in it rather than the high explosive rounds. He succeeded only in spreading more of the phosphorous, and not much of it either. XCOM tests in the Battle Zone would later confirm that "phosphorous on hydro-jets more or less suck the root. "
A monster came out of the burning reef, and it was man-sized (perhaps a foot taller). Susie Parks locked eyes with it and thought it looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It had no weapon that any of them could make out, but their eyes were drawn to the fire. It followed the creature as it swam out from the reef towards them. I's arms were outstretched and it clawed through the waters rather than swam it.

Susie Parks panicked and fired a burst from her harpoon rifle. She was rated with high firing accuracy but all of her shots missed.

Bobby Reids was beside her. He fired once. The round hit the monster in the leg. That was enough. The Black Lagoon creature was knocked into a hilarious series of front flips. It was still flipping pretty fast when it banged its head smartly against the Triton's hull. Its head came apart at the jaw.

"Fuck." Haru said. He was a nervous boy (and at 19 years of age he really was just a boy) but it was a shock just how even and calm his voice sounded. He gripped his harpoon gun tighter.

Susie put a round into the drifting body of the new alien type. The body spun away from them like it was doing ballet.

She glanced at Reids. "Just makin' sure."

"Man…I hear that." he said breathlessly.

Susie Parks and Bobby Reids scattered toward the stern of the ship. Quentin swam up, hoping to fire his torpedo down at any of these new creatures they caught swimming close to the seabed. Just like a video game, it was easier to kill with the splash damage than it was with a direct hit.

Reids saw the alien sub first. "Enemy cruiser fifty meters in front of me. You guys see it?"

"Negative." Quentin said. "Let me light things up for you."

He took the phosphorous torpedo out of his backpack. This ammo was already striking the heavy weapons expert as more trouble than it was worth. Already the coral reef below him had nearly stopped burning, and it had barely been a minute. What kind of happy horseshit was that? IC-rounds from a heavy cannon or auto-cannon were said to be able to clear forests and jungle like it was nothing.

He aimed and fired.

People could say what they wanted about the torpedo launcher; it was damn accurate. At least, it was when you took the time to train the scope on a piece of land (or a person) and let the thing do its work. You couldn't miss. A bright orange-yellow flower erupted in front of his brothers in arms.

"Thanks Quentin!" Reids shouted. "Shit, we got another green thing coming out from the sub entrance."

Quentin squinted his eyes, and thought he saw it. He loaded another rocket, the small one. The larger ones barely did any more damage and weighed nearly twice as much as the small ones.

In the distance he saw the tall green form. It was taking a few pot shots at Susie Parks and Bobby Reids, who took a few pot shots at it. The monster retreated from the returning fire, and swam back towards the sub. It was probably trying to find a good place inside of it, to hide and ambush.

It never got the chance. Quentin's torpedo detonated about four meters away from the retreating green alien. The explosion sent its body careening up over the sub.

Haru was quite weak and found even the harpoon rifle and two extra clips a bit too heavy for him. He traded them out for two dart pistols, and put three extra clips of that in his belt. Cool. No problem. He swam cautiously out of the sub, even though his fellow divers were starting.

"Me and Parks are heading to breach the sub."

Parks panicked voice: "Uh…we are?"

Genin's frightened voice blared: "Forget that noise Bobby. There's still a wide reef to the west."

"You guys handle that. I don't want to be caught out in the open fighting these things. They're more accurate than us."

"And I don't wanna fight them at close range!"

"I don't wanna fight them at any range!" Haru said, his voice cracking up.

There was stunned silence on radio. Then all the divers burst out in frantic laughter. For about thirty seconds, they were all in a state of relative ease. Easton was dead sure, but that was XCOM. They all knew the dangers. And whatever these new aliens were, they blowed up just like Aquatoids. Two of them, maybe even three, were already expired. If they played their cards right, they'd come out on top with yet another salvaged alien sub…and perhaps a few new weapons for the eggheads and techies to look at.

Then the phosphorous went out. The coral reef between the Triton and the alien cruiser had no more fuel left to burn.

Its light was extinguished like a blown candle, and they were all swallowed in darkness again.

Then the slaughter happened.

Quentin felt rather than heard a quickening hum go off behind him. He had enough time to turn around, but little else.

The green monster had perhaps been hiding behind the starboard side of the Triton. That was the great flaw of the Triton. It had the doors that could close and leave you safe, whereas the open ramp of Skyrangers left you pretty screwed, especially if the aliens tossed in a grenade. But, none of that mattered now. What mattered was the gun the alien was pointing at him. The bluish-green weapon was much longer than the small alien pistols but not much wider. It was a rifle. Its muzzle was a dark yellow.

The alien was larger than an Aquatoid, but only slightly taller than him. On the sides of its head were curling flaps that swelled out and collapsed in. They were gills. Red veins pulsed on the creature's body, only they were not veins, as they ran throughout the creature in straight lines and sharp corners. It's eyes were Asian-slits, with white corneas, but with no pupils that he could see. As Quentin watched the eyes turned as red as the glowing veins.

"Cybernetics." Quentin whispered to the monster. It grinned as if to agree. Red veins appeared on the alien rifle.

And for Quentin, the world became dazzling green…

Ryo and Debbie heard the gunshot and turned to see Quentin in two halves about ten meters above them. They stared in shock, before a second blast grazed Ryo's knee. Even just a grazing shot, Ryo felt his leg shattering as though a hammer had struck it.

He cried out, "Fuck!" Instead of turning around, he started flailing toward the alien sub, to the company of Parks and Bobby Reids. Reids was planting a magnapack on the double doors of the alien sub.

Debbie Genin turned to the Triton and saw the creature floating a ways above the it, it was staring dead at her. Red markings were all over its body, but already they were starting to fade.

Then Haru came out of the sub with Larry Zander behind him. They didn't see the monster above them, but it certainly saw them. It lowered its gaze, and pointed its weapon at them.

"Shit!" Genin cried out. She aimed the hydro-jet at the monster, feeling grateful that she'd switched out the phosphorous rounds for armor-piercing. It wouldn't matter if the weapon didn't hit though.

She was quite accurate for the distance, and the fact that hyro-jet had not much accuracy to speak of. All the same, Genin scored two hits. The left hip of the green monster rocked back, then its shoulder. A smile creased her face…then it was gone almost immediately.

Direct hits, but other than the body recoil, the thing didn't even look fazed.

The blood ran from Genin's face.

"Haru! Zander!" she shouted. "Watch out from above!"

Both of the Divers looked up, in time to see the alien aim its sonic gun at them.

Haru pivoted and swam back into the Triton in time. Larry Zander tried firing back with his own gun. He shots missed. The single shot of the sonic rifle did not. Zander's head melted, and his hands spread out in the manner of a preacher.

Debbie Genin and Ryo opened fire on the fucker. Most of their shots went wide (the hydro-jet really wasn't that good). The light from the alien gun's muzzle was starting to die out, and the creature was nearly swallowed in blackness that would certainly keep it alive and them dead. The phosphorous rounds from Ryo's gun had bright tracers. It illuminated the target a little as it passed them but not much.

Genin expended all her rounds and finally snatched the spare clip from her belt. High explosive rounds, probably not as good as the ones on the gas cannons…but it was something.

Ryo didn't need two. His last two shots crashed against the green alien's neck and left shoulder. It clutched the neck, which was already beginning to shine and to smoke. The alien's eyes were bugged out like a big pair of hands was closed around it.

It started flailing back and forth. It let go of its gun, and the thing corkscrewed lazily through the water. The alien turned over and over again. It sounded like it was screaming…or laughing.

"Dear God." Ryo whispered.

Neither one of them heard the sound of an object hitting the ground just below them.

Susie Parks and Bobby Reids heard none of it either. They were already inside of the alien craft. The former was far too frightened, her finger closed over the trigger of her gun, until a voice in her head told her to stop. She'd end up putting a harpoon bolt at the base of Reids' neck if she wasn't careful.

She thought back to the Battle Zone under the barracks. How easy it'd been to score well. But this shit…did any of them know what they were doing? What they were dealing with? No, they were done. This sub assault was over and their lives were over.

Bobby Reids, on the other hand was far too eager. There was a drumming going on between his ears. His head ached…in a good way. When the cruiser's doors were breached with the magnpack he went straight for the door on the right.

"Cover the one on the left for now." Reids said. "When I go in the right, you follow me in."

Parks nodded nervously. It wasn't very Susan B. Anthony, but she was scared off her gourd, and felt more than happy to let Reids take this cruiser by himself. Bobby Reids entered the starboard room of the cruiser, and rounded the corner. There was another green alien. He opened fire with his jet harpoon. One of the rounds took the monster in the eye. Another slammed into its chest, right where the human sternum would be. The force of the impacts knocked the creature into the wall behind it.

Bobby Reids cheered for about two seconds before he realized the creature wasn't dead. The harpoon that had hit its chest didn't fully pierce it, but instead shattered.

Blood-red markings lit up all across its body and the white slits it had or eyes resembled a human gash as they turned red. It had a two-handed weapon, but fired it with just one hand. The other was grasping the harpoon lodged in its right eye. Its remaining eye burned red like a star. It fired off twos sporadic shots. The second one went wide and handsome into the cruiser's ceiling but the first killed Bobby Reids before he even hit the wall behind him.

Susie Parks rounded the corner screaming, opening up with her own harpoon rifle, all of a sudden numb to the horror. Numb to the cold but persistent feeling of her fellow divers insides brushing against her diving suit. She opened fired and all three rounds hit. The alien struck the back wall again, much harder this time. There was a piece of machinery behind him (a computer or some such thing).

Henry O'Leary followed them in, ignoring he explosion behind him. He glanced behind to see if Ryo and Debbie Genin were still up. Even if they were, they were obscured by smoke, and he didn't want to be out in the open.

In the entrance way to the cruiser, he faced away from the door leading to the port room. He heard the door to the port room whine and whurr open, but before he could even turn it felt like someone had put a hole through his stomach and jammed a couple gallons of ice cream into it.

It was immense, searing pain. He looked down, his groan already rising into a scream, thinking that perhaps he was in a dream and roleplaying Bioshock. There was a drill point jutting out of his gut, and he thought he could make out thick strings that were perhaps his intestines.

Susie Parks killed the alien that killed Bobby Reids, then when she turned around there was Henry O'Leary. He well on his way to being dead, and his body had been pinned against the back wall of the entrance hall. This cleared the way for the alien to rush toward Parks.

Only it wasn't rushing, it drifted toward her at a leisurely pace, almost a drift. It was, in fact, the last surviving alien, but of course she had no way of knowing that. Certainly not from the smile, it had on its face—full of patience and good humor.

But the harpoon rifle clicked empty. She'd unloaded everything into the previous alien, and she was reaching into her belt for another clip when the monster took her down.

Deniker was currently at the edge of the combat zone, with his back to all the fighting. For the past ten minutes (and it felt like much longer) he'd found another coral reef structure and had hidden inside of it. When he finally got control of himself, he turned in the direction of the Triton and the alien sub…

…at least, he thought he was. The darkness was thick and heavy, almost seeming to be moving. Deniker remembered that the reef had been all burned out.

"Damn it." he muttered to himself. His gun was somewhere out there, floating haplessly in the dark…and it was dark down here. He could swim right by the fucking thing and not even notice it. He had his spare dart gun (whether it was useful or not it seemed like everyone had gotten off the Triton with one) and took it out of its belt. No spare clips for that though. He prayed to God that he wouldn't find anything alien between him and the Triton.

He started forward, hoping that he was going the right way. In the distance he could make out dim lights. He swam toward them, feeling a strange mixture of terror and dawning relief.

But as he neared the source, the terror began to overtake the relief…and then outpace it completely. The thing he was approaching was not the Triton. It was the tip of a pyramid. It was a very faint bluish color, about the size of the Triton if it had nothing else in common. Deniker put his hand in on it. It was beautifully and crisply smooth. It was like touching some precious metal.

The very narrow tip was shining the light. Behind it, he could make out another pyramid. No…there was a third off in the distance.

Tentacles emerged out from behind the second pyramid, touching at the structure as if to grab it.

Knowing he shouldn't, knowing it was probably another alien, Deniker swam towards it. When he rounded the corner of the second pyramid, all the breath went out of him at once.

It appeared to be a brain. A brain with long flowing stingers like a jellyfish. Thin spines went from its "lobe" to the back like a Mohawk. The brain turned to face him, the tentacles already curling up towards him, their tips shaking eagerly.

Cool. I've always wanted to have green skin, Deniker thought. He wondered what that meant. But as the alien swam toward him, Deniker decided it really didn't matter.

AN: Next up? A much needed upgrade.
Enemy Below Part 2: Gauss and Plastics.