X-COM:Eulogy
Part III
If King had made any notice of how he had been before in a similar situation he had already stored it to the back of his mind in a place where it wouldn't disturb him as he readied for action on the dark corridors of the abandoned alien base.
Seven years before he and the soldiers too injured to walk had stayed behind and waited for the aliens at the pyramid where the entrance to the underground section of the City. They were a last effort to stall the aliens that were stepping out of the UFOs that had just arrived to reinforce the ones below in the City that the other X-COM soldiers were fighting in reach the Brain.
They had set off explosives as the aliens advanced on the corridor that led into the elevator section inside the building, effectively trapping themselves but the aliens soon managed to burrow through. The troopers lobbied grenades at them together with rounds of heavy laser and plasma fire but even as a mass of alien bodies collected at the entrance to the elevator chamber one by one the X-COM soldiers were picked and killed by the marauding aliens who were desperate to protect the Brain. Only King and Woodley had survived since he had managed to escape through the elevators as Deschamps urged him to do so right before his death from several plasma injuries, constantly holding the other injured soldier to her feet. The only survivors of Omega squad had wondered hopelessly through the labyrinth of corridors and chambers, some filled with deadly aliens until they had finally made contact with the victorious remaining troops.
And now he recognized the game of hunt all again and something kept telling him that things weren't right, King sensed as he retraced the path they had taken until the giant staircase and back into the immense subterranean city. He wanted to check out the area he had seen from a distance since they had managed to find the staircase without a problem. It could only mean that something was behind that wall that wasn't marked but he didn't blame the soldiers who had drew it afterwards. It was close to impossible to remember everything when plasma shots were being exchanged with hostiles.
Next to him Zee waved her laser rifle from one direction to the other as they walked between rows of yellow and green glass cylinders now empty. Their power suits external lights were off since they would be dead giveaways of their presence to any alien survivors on the area. It could be fatal to assume that none was left because they hadn't stumbled into one on their way and King was almost sure that they had a straggler behind them. A strange blue light was being generated on the room since the metal walls were lit with it but they couldn't tell the source of it.
Like always it had been the small things that ordinarily didn't meant a thing for people and hardly notice them. But the trick was to keep your own paranoid side under control and pick up what really mattered from all the information his brain was receiving from his body's senses. A lithe sound echoing down a corridor that sounded like others they had listened before but attributed to the slow decay of the alien base. It could simply be a piece of broken machinery finally falling on the ground after years of precarious balance hanging from the hole opened by a plasma blast, with the sound being reflected to the nearby area. Or the result of the alloyed metal of the bases' walls and foundations contracting or dilating, from the contact with the cold Martian surface around it.
He hadn't seen anything moving yet but he already considered quite probable that they had someone following them but it seemed that it was keeping a distance. Any of the soldiers above would be smart enough to warn him of his approach but the radio had been silent all this time, telling him also that nothing had happened to the other soldiers… at least yet.
In order not to alert whoever was behind that they had taken notice of him he and Zee had kept their advance with him keeping point while she took the rear. He was looking for a position where they could get a clear look to check if there was really anyone back there with his plasma rifle pointed to the head of whomever was behind them. And if it wasn't human…
A few minutes later they had found a possible location to check whatever it was: a wide corridor that was a major intersection of smaller passageways before it bended straight sideways and further into the depths of the base. Leaning against the wall he brought upward the barrel of his plasma rifle until he lined the weapon towards the entrances of the side corridors. Then, as he wished for some more cover he lowered himself on his knees and brought the right eye visor of his helmet to the electronic sight built on top of the weapon, an addition made to the alien original design by X-COM's engineers. Matched with the visors on his own power suit they allowed him to scan the area in front of him in several wavelengths turning the dark corridor into an ocean of blue patterns. He preferred visible light than using IR since the infrared would take away most of the detail, adding an extra disability to target identification.
"Vislight" The suit's computer software detected his order and ordered the targeting system to switch view into visible light, ordering the micro engines on his right eye socket to deploy special screens designed to capture more photons than it was possible for the human eye. The vislight equipment then would feed the targeting system with a view that cast the corridor in tones of green as the software amplified the small amounts of photons that were not enough to provide for any visible light to human vision but now provided him with a clear view.
Just one more thing to do, King reminded himself. He then activated his radio while keeping an eye on the intersections but discovered to his dislike that something was interfering with the transmission since he received no response. They had faced the same problem on the underground base at Cydonia during the assault with something inside the alien's machinery or construction materials that interfered and blocked radio signals.
It didn't matter for in a matter of minutes they would be remaking contact with the main group and if something happened the sound of plasma was quite unforgettable for those who had heard it.
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"What's the problem Gunny?" Although Hopkins had been promoted past Gunnery Sergeant he still had people calling him for years by his former Marine Corps rank. Lieutenant White had picked the taller man's change of posture into an alert stance.
"Sir, I can't seem to see Dr. Johannes".
"What?" White glanced around as well but only saw three other human figures on the chamber besides him and Hopkins. "You don't think she was stupid enough…"
"Dr. Johannes, please reply, over".
A moment went before the lack of response made both men look in apprehension to one another.
"Everybody check!" Hopkins' voice gave no room for delays but besides him and the other four men he found out that King and Camay were also silent, although that didn't necessarily meant the worse on their case. "Jones! Rodriguez! When was the last time you saw Dr. Johannes?"
Both soldiers where now ready for action with their arms gripping the laser rifles. "Five minutes ago or something Sarge. She was just by the stairway looking at something on the ground". Jones nodded to Rodriguez reply. "Yeah, last time I saw here too, sergeant".
"Shit! And where is King?"
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Something chilly had dropped into the depths of the pyramid King felt it at the same time that forced himself to blink to refresh his eyesight. Most people got dry eyes from staring at one thing for too long with the unusual attention interfering with the natural blinking movement of the eye, where the brain normally unconsciously closed the eyelids several times each minute. He tried to relax his kneeled legs but kept a tight grip on the plasma rifle he was holding.
He had switched his suit's targeting system back to IR since it gave better contrast of any heat emitting form that skulked into the corridor. A few moments ago he had heard another undifferentiated sound coming from one of the corridor and he motioned Camay to be ready for whatever was coming down there.
The IR image showed the passageway clean and there was still a bluish tone being reflected at the distance off the walls probably coming from the chamber that King and Camay had passed on their way to here. He had chosen the spot where he was standing because it was the darkest one of the passageway while the other end still had some illumination coming. As he switched back to natural light he saw the indication that he was waiting and that neither IR or vislight could give him: a shadow quickly flickered on the left wall directly facing one of the corridors.
An almost invisible looming shape covered the floor to join the darkness on the wall and has moments slowly rushed by King tightened his grip on the handle and squeezed the trigger.
Inside the rifle's magazine a small portion of Elerium was suddenly released into the end of a small particle accelerator whose main portion was less than an inch wide but consisted of a tube that was so small that unwrapped had a length of several kilometers. Equally small sized magnets lining it powered subatomic particles across its length until they collided with the Unp-115 at the end and provoked a nuclear fission reaction.
The discharge process of a plasma weapon using Elerium was threefold. First a portion of the Elerium was immediately consumed, releasing anti-matter which annihilated itself in contact with normal matter, releasing energy, which was then used to power a low intensity laser to excite the path of the beam and reduce any atmospheric friction. Second, the energy was also used to control the anti-gravity fields produced by the fission and mold them into a containment path that followed the laser. The anti-gravity field was usually the first physical effect suffered by the target as it gave a slight amount of pressure but most of its effects were centered into something else.
The last step of the process was actually a combination of the first two but it was what it gave the weapons its destructive power. The particle accelerator also propelled the remains of the Elerium charge down the barrel of the weapon. There the anti-gravity field took over and directed the still active Unp-115 through the path of the laser. As it traveled along the path of the laser the field compressed the thin Martian atmosphere to produce a cracking sound during its flight. By the time of impact with the target it was nothing more than a small mass of contained energy and anti-matter particles glowing brightly green and lighting the corridor as the weapon had already completed its reloading cycle and King scanned for his target for a second shot.
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"Doctor Johannes!" Lieutenant White's angry voice made the scientist stop with one foot already placed upon the next step of the long stairway. She looked upwards and into the bright light beacons coming out of Hopkins' power suit, which was leading the squad downwards from the command chamber.
She raised her hand to block the searchlights pointed at her as Hopkins quickly rushed down the steps to meet her. "What's happening Sergeant?" Then she asked in a worried tone. "Who's been firing?"
Behind them Jones shared a look with Rodriguez as they stood holding their laser rifles. They quickly moved past the pair and rushed downstairs as Hopkins scanned her for any injury. "Are you alright?"
"I think my oxygen unit has malfunctioned".
"Doctor…" By now the White had joined the larger armored figure of Hopkins with Yusuf following close and the officer was not pleased. "Where the hell have you been? Are you nuts? What happened?"
She pointed downwards. "Well, I thought I had seen some carvings downstairs so I thought I might take a couple of photos of them". She waved her portable camera for them to see. "But I think my oxygen level must have dropped because I passed out and I woke up with the sound of a shot being fired".
"Doctor, don't ever go out without an escort if you want to live! That was a very, very stupid thing to do!" His rebuttal made her cringe backwards but he ignored her reaction. "Rodriguez, Jones, find King and Camay! I want to know just what happened!"
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Three hours later King was finishing racking his power suit back up to the ceiling while Camay was to his left and reading her own armor to be placed back on storage. Holding a small yellow control pad that hung from the metal trappings above him King press a button and small engines started pulling the suit upwards by small alien alloy chains. There were eight holding pods for the suits attached to the ceiling of the Avenger's main bay, each one with his own elevation system. Each tortoise shaped exoskeleton weighted more than two hundred pounds back on Earth and although Mars' own gravity reduced the weight to less than the half it was still a big mass in terms of volume to move around.
King watched the suit move upwards with the Elerium powered engine pulling it up slowly in a rattling sound. Camay had already finished locking the suit and fixing the steel chains on lifting points built into the back of the armor. The rest of the squad had already finished their securing their equipment and were inside their cabinets and sleeping, with the exception of the commander and Dr. Boronin, plus Major Seymour who was keeping an eye on the scanners. They had set portable motion scanners covering a perimeter around the spacecraft and anything moving would set out an alarm on the cockpit of the Avenger. The lights on the other section of the large cargo bay were already dimmed but he could see Dr. Johannes busy around one of the workstations while Boronin stood beyond her, both with their backs turned against each other.
Moving closer to one of the view ports he looked at the massive figure of the Pyramid and reflecting on the day's events. "Still wondering?" Camay's low voice came from behind him as she got up and reached for another control pad.
"Yeah". He assented. "There was something up there". Back there on the corridor he had been surprised when he had seen the plasma blast fly by the space where he had calculated his target would occupy based on its apparent movement. His eyes had immediately scanned again but this time they could only see the green that filled the corridor being replaced by blue as the frigid Martian atmosphere brought down the temperature. After some tense moments of waiting he had moved to the front and found no evidence of his target or any trace that it had been an alien. But he still had a certainty that he had shot at something although he might never find out what it was. After they had brought back the scientists to the Valiant the entire squad had made a sweep of the pyramid and had found nothing, which was reassuring but it still didn't explain the presence he had felt down there.
With his suit secure King picked up his plasma rifle and with a flick of a switch built close to the handle unloosed the magazine. Looking at the black clip on his hand King realized that he had just gained a ton of paperwork to fill for discharging his weapon. He would have to give a full account of how and why he had wasted ammunition worth more than a hundred thousand US dollars, according to the latest market prices. That made him curse even more than having missed the shot.
"Commander…." Taken aback from his mental wonderings by Johannes's voice Boronin turned his body on his chair on the other side of the Avenger's bay as the scientist approached him. "Well doctor?" The look of frustration on her head told the X-COM commander that she hadn't made any progress after finishing to review to the orbital scans. She had stayed awake all night finishing the examination.
"All orbital scans show negative to any tracks of active Elerium power sources. As for any deposits the background radiation simply makes the whole thing like finding a needle on a hay stack". He slowly exhaled as he paused to consider the information. Despite King's incident at the D&M Pyramid they had spend their days on Mars without encountering any alien activity and now the scans had confirmed it, something that relieved him although he knew that they couldn't let their guard down. But what it also meant was that they would have to start making scans of probable areas, without any indication of where they should look at. They already had lost a number of days at the Pyramid site and would have to start investigating other areas at once. The question was deciding which ones.
"Start making a list of sites for us to investigate after we check out the City doctor". Johannes paused before acknowledging and then said. "Commander, I believe that it is useless to stay on Cydonia much more. We should start with the areas outlaying it immediately. I have already mapped a number of possible locations…".
Boronin hadn't sleep that night for a number of reasons. He simply scratched his scruffy face and replied. "Suggestion noted but dismissed doctor".
"Dumpkoff!" The insult was less than a whisper coming from Johannes thin pressed lips but it made Boronin turn his head to her slowly. He didn't speak German except for a few words now that she had just called him stupid but he had quickly picked up the meaning.
Feeling an urge to control the pool of anger that was growing inside, his stomach contracted. After hearing of the incident at the pyramid he had decided that White's verbal reprimand to her had been enough but now the smugness of her reaction was troubling him too much to not dealing with her. But then he saw the figure of Jones stepping into the airlock and his attention was distracted to him.
"Doctor". He slowly mustered his calm. "I'll forget that for the sake of avoiding something that we both might regret. However we won't leave for the City until tomorrow and if you present me with any relevant new information I will consider it. Now, if you please, I have an important task outside". He got up and went past a startled Johannes who was suddenly caught off guard by his departure as he quickly pulled metal chains and brought down from the ceiling his power suit.
She shook her head in frustration and moved back to her terminal as Boronin rested the open suit on the metal ground of the Avenger and then placed himself down on the empty human figure of the back section of the suit. Camay and King had already moved to help lower the front part of the armor into Boronin and seal the suit but it was Hopkins who completed the operation as he stepped out of the airlock at that moment still on his own power suit. Both King and Camay left the task to the sergeant has his suit gave him more strength than two ordinary humans.
On the other section of the Valiant Johannes was left to her own thoughts as she felt tired also from going over countless scans to search for the E-115.
What had happened to Earth concerning Elerium had been a succession of overconfidence and greed and the scientists had also to take some responsibility regarding that matter. On the aftermath of the war the Council had decided that X-COM's recovered Elerium cache should be distributed between the nations that had been a part of the war effort. The scientific community at first had made few objections regarding that matter due to their own expectations of using it for faster than light travel that would overcome the fact that it wasn't natural to the Solar System.
It made the politicians happy and the generals even happier as the weapons research made by X-COM was turned to the military, along with a substantial part of the mineral. Not surprisingly civilian research was given a low priority while military applications had received large budgets for investigation. At first it hadn't been much of a problem since FTL travel had also a substantial funding but after years of lack of any significant progress all plans to develop interstellar craft had been abandoned, along with all the advanced weapons meanwhile developed to use Elerium as a fuel. The price of the material had skyrocketed before the government had placed strict bans but the damage had been already done, as military use of the material had been widespread.
But it had been also the scientists' fault and to the general expectations concerning the progress of the research. During the three years of the Alien War X-COM had been successful in breaking through the aliens' technical secrets, in a research effort that had been already labeled as exceeding the Manhattan Project. They had discovered the basic properties of E-115 and refined them into practical applications, ranging from propulsion to weapons design, plus discovered new alloys and other pieces of technology. It had been hard but Oppenheimer and his colleagues did not had technical advantages such as computers capable of performing billions of operations every second. Plus the X-COM scientists had an additional psychological advantage that the Soviets had possessed when building their own atomic bomb after witnessing the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: they knew that it was possible since they aliens were doing it with their UFOs.
It had made a great difference on the progress of their discoveries but after the war they had suddenly hit a blank wall concerning faster than light travel.
No one had any idea of how the aliens had reached the Solar System and the interrogation of the few prisoners still alive hadn't turn with any results. It had been assumed that such systems were present on the Mothership since no recovered UFO had possessed them but the gigantic ship had been completely obliterated after its crash into the Moon, leaving few remains.
That left a big question mark and the scientific and intelligence communities were starting to consider other options regarding the Starspawn. Some proposed that the Mothership had carried their species along the stars but at a sub light speed for millions of years since the Sectoids had left their home system. Others that the aliens had managed to create wormholes that connected regions of space or even dimensional gates. The contact with the aliens had left more questions than it had answered and Johannes and others were trying to grasp something into a dark and large room.
Either way, the lack of any results and the disappearance of any alien threat had nearly scrapped the entire project until the Council had grudgingly but also desperately approved of the mission to Mars. Turning back to the small workstation Johannes tried to exhale in relief but none came so she decided to let the data sheets in front of her distract her attention.
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"Hurry up Rodriguez! The scientists must be getting out of the plane any minute now!". The low Sun couldn't bring any additional warmth to the Rodriguez hands as he paused the work he was doing under the cover of a large rock. "Just watch the freaking' door Jones!" Before he turned back to the metal plates that stood on the ground he finished off in irritation. "And next time be on time!" He had been expecting Jones for several minutes now to relieve his watch and bring the package he had been expecting.
"I know! But the commander must have stayed up all night or something. We had to improvise and leave them at the toilet compartment instead…" The figure of a power suit at the hatch on the side of the Avenger made him stop as he saw the armored door opening itself. Jones first thought that the figure would be corporal Dare since they had been scheduled to remain on the ship they would deploy on today's survey mission. But as it moved away from the stairs he noticed in surprise that it didn't stop by the tracked vehicle they had brought along attached to the Avenger's hull for the long prospecting missions. "What's happening Jones? You're too quiet and that's making me nervous".
"Nothing it's…" The subdued gray skull insignia painted on the chest of the armored figure approaching both men made him cringe inside his helmet.
"Shit! It's the commander!" As Rodriguez stopped the movement of his arms and looked he saw an armored figure standing approaching them. He immediately started to get up from his knees as the radio channel begun to crackle. "Sergeants Jones and Rodriguez…what is going on?" There was a hint of a threat on his tone and it made both snap into attention as Rodriguez searched Jones eyes' underneath his mask. Boronin simply pointed to the ground with his laser rifle. "What are those objects and how did they get here?"
Rodriguez simply quitted making up any excuse. He placed down the pliers he was holding on the sand and then both his hands went to collect a large piece of polished metal that stood in the middle of smaller and identical plates.
A single look told Boronin that it should be very heavy as he gauged the thickness of the metal plate on the sergeant's hands and he immediately wondered how they had been able to smuggle it onboard since every kilo of weight overboard had been calculated and checked several times before the take-off. Taking it from Rodriguez hands he further noticed that the larger portion had been bolted together from several of the smaller ones that were resting on the ground half-covered by dust. It was rectangular in shape and made of alien alloys, which considerably lessen its weight than using steel plus being more durable and on the dark gray metal white lettering had been carved with great care and precision by an engineer back at Mother One that was coaxed by the soldiers.
Boronin could read some of the words but he realized by looking at the empty slots built into the right side that it was some panel not yet fully assembled. He already knew what it was before asking the soldiers. "Well? Who is going to explain this to me before I decided to court-martial you right here and leave you on the planet?". The threat was not really meant but Boronin knew that he couldn't simply let this off without some sort of a reprimand. The dimension of the punishment would depend on their replies.
"Commander…" Jones started but it was Rodriguez who gave the final clue to the puzzle. "Sir, none of us brought along any unauthorized weight. Each one of the soldiers hid a plate along their personal belongings allowed for the mission". That gave Boronin the answer to how they had been able to smuggle the plates that looked they had seemed to have been made of the old blue personal armor, most likely from the chest pieces since they retained their original curved shape. Each soldier was allowed five kilograms of personal belongings, which included clothing, specific hygiene products and leisure articles such as visiscreen cartridges or even a pack of cards. All was stored on onboard the Valiant.
Looking back to the soldiers, Boronin demanded. "What is this thing?"
"A memorial plaque sir". Jones' answer surprised the X-COM commander as he tried to remember what the word meant in English. "A what?"
"The things they put in monuments and buildings sir". Now Boronin remembered where he had heard the word before. "Wait a minute! The Council voted this down!"
Both soldiers looked at each other before Rodriguez replied. "We know sir. There wasn't enough space available for it. But we polled the entire squad and everyone agreed to take a piece of it and make it a personal homage to those who never made it back, if there couldn't be an official one. We tried to keep this quiet so that word of it wouldn't get back to the Council and get you in trouble sir".
Boronin was about to drop the unfinished plaque to the floor and order both soldiers back to their roles as he considered how to deal with this insubordination. He now understood why some of them had been acting weirdly on the past days and they moved to collected the pieces and assemble them together on the outside, away from any prying eyes.
Instead he passed it back to Rodriguez who accepted it back carefully. "Where were you thinking of placing it?"
Still disturbed by being caught by the commander and puzzled by Boronin's candid question Rodriguez replied. "Well we're thinking over there about the entrance to the Pyramid but we weren't sure if we could finish it on time. Sergeant Jones told me that you are planning to leave this area shortly".
For a moment Boronin didn't reply and simply looked at the landed Avenger in consideration. Rodriguez saw Jones looking at him with the 'we're screwed' attitude but his next words puzzled him even more. "Carry on with this. Get somebody to help but don't take anyone from their assigned duties. Keep it off the scientists' eyes though. And don't worry, Sergeant. I think I know just the right place to put it". Then Jones looked befuddled at Rodriguez, who nearly dropped the plaque as Boronin dropped it into his hands.
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