Insights
Larry Mann
Back to X-Com Page
"X-COM: UFO Defense" and "X-COM: Terror From The Deep"
Copyright (c) 1994 MicroProse and Mythos Software
"X-Com Saga" Copyright (c) 1994 Russ Brown
"X-Com Saga II: Tales From The Deep" Copyright (c) 1996-97 Larry Mann
ASPECT THREE:: Insights
- - -
NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN
WRECKAGE OF THE _KUSANAGI MARU_
"Remind me again what we're doing down here, Lyu," Zander
remarked as he hauled himself up over the last railing and found himself
standing on the badly skewed main deck of the wrecked cruise ship. "I really
keep forgetting."
"Well, Zen," Lyudmila responded with Zander's nickname. "Officially
we're down here surveying this dead rustbucket because no one else was
available. Unofficially it's so we can all get used to moving around in diving
suits surrounded by a few thousand cubic feet of salt water."
"Ah," Zander answered with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. "I'm
glad I know this." Great, no armor and we're all moving at half speed, he
added privately. How the hell are we supposed to fight anything down
here?
Well we're just gonna have to learn now, aren't we? Lyudmila
answered, sweeping her motion scanner around and detecting only the
signatures of her own troopers. Listen, it could be a hell of a lot worse: we
could be doing this in deep water at night, and I could be getting bugs all over
my HUD.
Yeah, there is that, I guess, Zander mused, and then switched back
to verbal communication. "So, what exactly are we looking for?"
"Cabin number 206-F," came the reply, as Lyudmila stepped down
through a stairwell and into the corridor below. "According to the cruise
company's roster the girl we need info on was there. Himiko? Take your
squad and check out the rest of the upper decks. Zen and I are going in."
"Roger that, Lyu," Himiko's voice crackled through her earpiece.
The lights inside the corridor were of course not functional, meaning
the hallway was dark except for the beams of light which came through
portholes on the outer hull. Out of reflex the two troopers slowed their pace,
activating the flashlights built into their diving helmets. Zander gripped his
gauss rifle a little more firmly, and Lyudmila glanced carefully at her motion
scanner. There was no motion and no reason to believe that any enemy was
moving nearby, but neither Lyudmila nor Otto had gotten where they were by
being careless. Just because nothing showed up on the motion scanner, that
didn't mean a bug wasn't standing still, hiding nearby and waiting for a
chance to take a potshot.
"Here we go," Lyudmila straightened up as her flashlight beam
landed on a small number plate next to a door, which read `206-F'.
"How the heck do these things work?" Otto asked, peering at the
access panel next to the doorway. Card-activated locks had been around in
1999, of course, but they hadn't been quite this sophisticated, nor had they
been attached to automatic doors.
"Well, this one won't," Lyudmila quipped. "No power and all that. But
seriously, it's probably just a fancier keycard than what we used to have.
Come on, let's pry this thing open." Some quick work with a couple crowbars
pried the thin door far enough away that they could pull it open the rest of the
way with their hands, and they stepped inside.
"Okay, now what?" Zander asked as he panned his flashlight around,
surveying the remains of the small cabin.
"Look for pictures, IDs, anything that'll tell us something about this
girl."
"Would you mind telling me who the girl is, Lyu?" Zander said as he
started poking around in the drawers, finding only assorted pieces of female
clothing. "I wasn't at the briefing, you know."
"Sorry, Zen," Lyudmila said, opening a suitcase she'd found and
rifling through it. "Name is Stefanie Dreyfus. Caucasian, blond hair, age 19
at time of disappearance."
"Or of abduction," Zander remarked. Where the bugs were concerned,
such happening was very likely, and they both knew it.
"Right, but we can't say that to the civvies."
"So do I get to know why X-Com is so interested in this Stefanie
Dreyfus person, or is that need-to-know-basis material?"
"Yeah, sure. You can be trusted." She went on to briefly explain
what had happened when she'd first woken up, and what had happened in the
sub pen at Tsunami.
"An Elerium crystal?" Otto said with understandable disbelief when
she'd finished. "How is that possible?"
"I wondered that myself-- ah, good..." Lyudmila paused as she came
across some documents, including a passport. She opened it up and stared
intently at the photo there for a few moments, finally nodding to herself.
"That's her. That's the same face I saw." Zander shuffled over to have a
look.
"Anyway, there's more," Lyudmila went on. "After we had a name, our
agents did a little digging, and we discovered that her grandparents are one
Claude Dreyfus, and one Laura Malinov, now Laura Dreyfus."
"Heh," Zander chuckled, recognizing the names of fellow troopers.
"So they got married, huh?"
"Evidently, yes."
Zander became serious again. "Hold on... does that mean that they
were stealing Elerium from Alaska Base?" The notion didn't sit well with him,
but it would explain the presence of an Elerium crystal in public.
"If they were, they did a damn good job of concealing it because there
was no report of any loss from Stores at Alaska, and you know how closely
Stores is watched. Both received honorable discharges from X-Com a few
months after the war was over. Spotless records for both of them. No way in
hell they could have accessed any Elerium stocks, such as they were, after
that, so if they did take some it was while they were still commissioned."
"Damn," Otto remarked. "But why, though? Assuming they did, of
course. Sure the stuff's valuable and all, but their monthly salaries were
worth ten times as much as one ounce of Elerium. And they weren't
documented psis or anything like that. Why take a crystal? What good would
it do them?"
"I don't know," Lyudmila replied, her eyes on the photo of Stefanie.
"But something is definitely going on, and I'm going to find out what it is, one
way or another."
Zander couldn't help observing that Lyudmila seemed unusually
focused on this matter. But, he kept it to himself, and further told himself to
relax. After all, the Elemental probably had one of the most level heads in the
entire X-Com organization. She certainly knew what she was doing.
Right?
* * *
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TUCSON, ARIZONA
What now? Laura Dreyfus thought tiredly to herself as she headed
for the front door yet again. Probably another person coming to offer their
condolences about poor Steffie. It was kind of them, true, but frankly she was
starting to get sick of it. The inner door slid open, and through the screen
door the old woman found herself face to face with two black-clad, sunglass-
wearing suits. Instantly her guard was up.
"Laura Dreyfus?" the female suit asked.
"I'm not sure," Laura replied cautiously. "What if I am?"
The suits pulled identification badges from pockets, and the male one
spoke. "James Stutz, X-Com Intelligence Division. This is my associate,
Sylvie Gaudin." Sylvie nodded in Laura's direction. "Do you and your
husband have a few moments?"
"We don't owe X-Com any favors," Laura said flatly, ignoring the bad
feeling that had begun in the pit of her gut.
"Please, Mrs. Dreyfus," Sylvie said, as James turned and headed
back toward the black van parked in front of the house. "A colleague of ours
has come a long way to speak with you. She's promised to be as brief as
possible, and then we will be on our way. We give you our word."
A voice came from elsewhere in the house. "Who's at the door, hon?"
"Just some crazy salesmen, Claude," she called. It was a code
phrase. Claude would know there was trouble. She turned her attention back
to Sylvie. "Why don't I believe you?"
For a moment Sylvie actually looked slightly downcast, as if she'd
been personally wounded. Then she straightened up. "If you don't believe
me, then please believe your colleague." About this time Laura got a good
look at the woman who was walking up the driveway with James. She was
much more casually dressed, muscular, and much too familiar...
"What's going on here?" Claude Dreyfus demanded as he stepped
into the foyer, ready to protect his wife at any cost. Then he saw the
approaching woman too, and like Laura, froze up for a moment.
"Hello Claude, Laura," Lyudmila said calmly. "I need to talk with
you."
"So the rumors about units being frozen were true," Claude said when
he and Lyudmila were outside, in the back patio and out of earshot of the two
suits, who were now being served coffee by Laura. "We thought you were
dead. Why'd you do it?"
"We didn't have a choice, Claude," Lyudmila answered. "They got us
drunk and before I know what's happening I'm being turned into a human
popsicle along with my entire squad. Next time I wake up, it's 2040, and I'm
finding out what the damned bureaucrats did to us."
"I know..." Claude shook his head. "So stupid. You'd think they
would have shown a little more gratitude..." He trailed off, considering
several things. X-Com had been all but dismantled after the Alien War, and
faded into near nonexistence. Even he hadn't been able to spot any X-Com
personnel anywhere, something he'd become quite adept at. Now, however,
they had reappeared...
"They're back, aren't they?"
"They're not the bugs we fought 40 years ago, but I would have to say
yes."
"I knew..." Claude said quietly, apparently to himself. "Somehow, I
knew..."
"Hm?"
"They've got Steffie, don't they?"
Lyudmila considered for a minute. "We can't prove that. But... the
ship she was on was attacked and sunk by bugs..." She reached into a
pocket and held up the pendant. "And we found this on one of them."
Claude winced and looked away, the pain very clear on his face. He
knew what had happened... and what was likely happening to the poor girl
now. "Oh god..." he moaned. "She must not have been wearing it..."
Lyudmila was a little confused by that remark. She felt for him, but
she had a job to do. "Would you care to explain what you mean by that?"
Claude stared at her. It was easy for Lyudmila to see that she was
asking him to reveal a very carefully guarded secret, and she could further
sense that it could be personally damaging, even after all this time. "The
subject is completely need-to-know, Claude. I'll only tell X-Com what they
need to know."
The meaning of Lyudmila's words was easily understood. Whatever
it was that Claude and Laura had done, only Lyudmila would know about it. It
was a clear show of respect for a fellow X-Com trooper. Claude nodded his
understanding after a minute's consideration. He glanced back toward the
back doors, as if to make sure they weren't being listened to, and then began
his story.
"Right after the action on Cydonia, I started to get... funny feelings,
like there was something we'd missed, something we hadn't done yet. After a
while I started to feel like all those bugs we'd shot down over the oceans...
were starting to come back, even though I knew that was impossible. The
docs all told me it was just post-traumatic stress disorder, all that crap."
"You're not a certifiable psi, Claude," Lyudmila interjected. "Neither
was Laura, for that matter. The docs would have every reason to believe it
was PTSD."
"I know, I know. But we *had* been in training for a month, and our
base psionic strength had been determined. It wasn't much, sure, we
probably couldn't have made a psi-amp work, but it *was there*.
"Anyway... the feelings got to the point where we felt like we needed
some protection once we got out of X-Com. We knew they wouldn't let us take
psi-amps or anything and that probably would have been a waste of time
anyway. So we decided to sneak a couple Elerium crystals out. It was easy
to sneak a few small ones out of the refuelling stock for the Firestorm at our
base. They never gave it a thought, and nobody ever knew the difference."
Briefly, he tugged a small gold neckchain and pulled something out of
his shirt. It was another Elerium pendant, smaller than the one Lyudmila
held. "It's not a real psi-amp, of course," he said, quickly concealing the
crystal again. "But it's the conduit for the power. It seems to be enough."
"You're saying you have psi now?" Lyudmila said with more than a
little disbelief, and yet the notion seemed entirely plausible.
"I'm saying that whenever we wear these crystals we feel safer. I
don't know how to explain it. It's like there's some kind of secure wall in
place."
"That's all well and good, but how does Stefanie fit into this picture?"
"Steffie was always hearing voices. The doctors all said they were
just vivid dreams because they always happened at night, but I knew better. I
remembered all the old training exercises we'd done at Alaska. I
remembered how my perceptions changed afterwards. I tried the exercises
on her," his voice dropped down to an excited whisper. "She was hearing
*real* voices, Lyu... she was a natural psi!"
Lyudmila didn't know what to say. Somehow, she knew he was not
lying.
"I had to protect her," Claude went on. His narrative had accelerated
to a very rapid pace now. "I still couldn't shake the feeling, all these years,
that something was still going down. I had to make sure she knew how to use
her gift and could take care of herself. I taught her everything the psi-spooks
at Alaska taught us. I gave her that crystal for her own protection..." He
broke off, and seemed on the verge of stifling a sob. "It wasn't enough..."
"It's not too late," Lyudmila mumbled, her own thoughts scrambling to
reorganize themselves after this flood of information, her eyes focusing on an
imaginary point in front of her. "It is *not* too late..."
"How can you be *sure*, Lyudmila?"
Unconsciously her grasp on Steffie's pendant tightened. "I can't be...
I just... I just *know*, somehow..." It was clear to both of them that Lyudmila
had also experienced some kind of change over the years, despite being
frozen. And if she said she knew... then she did. She looked at Claude.
"What the hell is happening to us?"
"You have to find her, Lyudmila," Claude gripped her by her thickly
muscled arms. He was almost pleading. "God only knows what those filthy
bastards will do to her. You have to get her back!"
"I know," she said. "I'm going to." Damned if I know *how*,
though... she didn't add.
"You'll think of something. I have faith in you," Claude replied, and
suddenly they were both looking at each other in surprise. He'd *heard*
that?!
"Well, thank you for your time, Claude. This is going to be a big
help."
Laura and the two agents looked up from the coffee table as Lyudmila
and Claude returned from outside, smiling and generally looking a lot less
tense than when the X-Com group had arrived.
"Of course," Claude replied cheerily. "Glad to help out an old friend.
Anything else we can do, be sure and call, okay?"
"I'll keep that in mind. Well, we won't impose on your hospitality any
longer. Nice to see you again, Laura."
"Oh, um, sure," Laura answered, not exactly sure how to interpret the
sudden change in mood but sensing that playing along would be very wise.
"Take care of yourselves," Lyudmila turned to her two escorts. "Let's
go, people." Sylvie and James offered polite goodbyes as well, and a minute
later they were out the door.
"Did you get the information you needed, Lieutenant?" Sylvie asked
offhandedly as she got into the front passenger's seat in the van and closed
the door.
"Yes," Lyudmila replied calmly. "And some useful insights to go with
it. Let's get back to base."
The two agents nodded. This matter was not one they were cleared to
know the details on. Their sole purpose had been to escort Lyudmila, which
they had done. The details did not concern them, and so they calmly
shrugged it all off without another thought, knowing they had done their job.
Lyudmila's mind, however, was nowhere near as calm. This is
unbelievable... she thought, working hard to calm her racing brain. Low-
level and non-documented psis not only manifesting, but increasing in base
strength? The spooks always said that was impossible, and yet intelligence
indicates this has been happening worldwide. My own rating has increased
exponentially. And I'm physically stronger, too...
Damn... Something really big is going down on this planet... she
thought. And if there's bugs involved, then it can't be good...
After the van had pulled out of sight, Claude sagged into the nearest
chair and put his head in his hands. "What is it, hon?" Laura asked as she
knelt in front of him, full of worry.
In answer Claude pulled her into an embrace. "Say a little prayer,
sweetheart," he said quietly. "For Steffie. For *all* of us..."
Laura didn't think about the fear in her husband's voice, merely
complied with his request.
END THREE
END