Claymore turned away from the monitor.
"Shit," Mr. Nguyen pronounced. "That was –"
"Impressive," Claymore finished. "And somehow more dramatic than anything cable television could put out twenty years ago."
She blinked, trying to clear away the stinging haze that had covered her eyes.
"You okay, CC?" Mr. Nguyen said. "Your eyes are red."
"Fucking hell," Claymore grumbled. "Haven't stared at a screen in ages." She blinked, letting a few tears squeeze their way out of her eyelids. There.
"Anyway, I'm not doing this anymore. Bradford got what he came for."
Mr. Nguyen grinned at that. "Very exciting!" he said. "I haven't seen the Commander in ages."
"Yeah," Claymore said. "You know where they're keeping her?"
"Last I saw, they went to the operating room, in the labs. But I don't think Bradford and Dr. Tygan want to be –"
But Claymore was already up.
"No worries, Mr. Nguyen," Claymore said. "I've got a report to hand in anyway."
She moved away and walked out of the command center. The harsh light of the hallways greeted her, giving her corneas more unnecessary grief.
However, Claymore liked these hallways. They were empty, devoid of people or noise. The air was light, skimming off the surface of her skin instead of bearing down on it. If she closed her eyes, even for a moment, she could almost smell the wastes. Sometimes it was the cloying scent of Saharan dust, or the fresh plants sprouting off the sides of fjords.
She walked deeper into the hallways, absorbing herself in her memories. She could hardly imagine that there was a command center, or even a bar, lying beyond the chrome walls. It was, no pun intended, alien to her.
Finally, she reached the lab. Or, really, the engine room. The resident sawbones and scientist, Dr. Richard Tygan, apparently saw no problem in keeping his laboratory, research files, and operating room next to the five fucking tons of explosive shit that kept the Avenger running.
Right now, it seemed like she had missed the party. The good doctor was the only person left, and he was preoccupied with cleaning some kind of cross between a vibrator and a screwdriver.
"Tygan?" Claymore asked, stepping across the threshold.
"Hm?!" Tygan spurted. His hands crumpled like chloroformed spiders, dropping the device onto the floor. A few oily drops of blood flattened themselves against the metal floor.
"Sorry doc!" Claymore said, racing over and reaching towards the device. "Didn't mean –"
Tygan swooped down. One hand slapped at Claymore's grasping mitts, while the other retrieved the strange device. Claymore recoiled, while the doctor resumed his normal position. He looked Claymore, dead in the eyes, with a blank expression on his face.
"Doc – ?" Claymore began.
"Don't touch this!" he barked, harsh as a Doberman. He blinked, looking almost disgusted by his outburst.
"I – I'm very sorry, Mrs. Claymore," Tygan said. He tapped the device in his hands. "Just overprotective. Wouldn't want this to end up embedded in your forearm."
"It's fine, doc," Claymore huffed. "I just need to find Bradford."
"Commander's Quarters," Tygan replied. Then: "Also, I'm afraid –"
Claymore turned, and began to walk away.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, waving a hand. "Go away, busy working. I get the drill, doc. It's been three weeks."
She fled back into the hallways, while Tygan smacked his lips and began working again, thoughts of XCOM's interim commander the far from his mind.
As Claymore tramped along the hallways of the Avenger once more, she thought she ought to check on the troops. It wasn't too hard to find some of them. All she had to do was find out where the walls were vibrating, and follow them to the bar.
The walls were quivering a lot more than normal, though. When Claymore pressed a finger to the floor, she felt shakes going up her arm. The floor felt like it had the consistency of Jell-O. Something loud, probably that "Holy Diver" cover that Claymore had found sitting near the liquor cabinet.
She made her way into the bar and frowned. Loud, raucous music was pounding from the bar's surround sound systems, but the bar itself was far from alive. Only two people were there: the big Russian and the Canadian. Currently, the Canadian (Banks, that was it) was passed out against the bar, while the Russian was pouring a glass from the bar's larder.
"Commander," the Russian said. Claymore struggled to remember his name. Peter? A vague jumble of letters bounced around her head, mostly a bunch of p's, v's, and backwards R's.
"Eh… Trooper," Claymore replied. She threw her arm against her forehead and launched it into the air – a sloppy excuse of a salute.
The Russian looked at her funny. Then, he gave her a salute. It was a bit more professional.
"You want a drink, Commander?" he asked Claymore.
"Drink?" Claymore repeated. She teetered against the threshold of the bar, wondering if she ought to accept. Then again…
"You have time," the Russian said, looking down and pouring out the rest of his drink. Brown alcohol carved a snakelike path through the cracks of the ice in the drink. "Central carted up the old woman an hour ago. Something about a coma." He looked up, before shaking the bottle. "More left. You have time."
Claymore shrugged. Maybe she ought to take a little break. She probably deserved something for orchestrating a somewhat successful guerilla ambush.
She took a glass from the Russian and downed it.
"So," she began, a bit of her confidence restored by the liquor. "If you've got anything mean to say, now's the time."
The Russian shook his head. "Nyet. You did fine."
"Bringing back six body bags must be an achievement."
"Six? You do yourself wrong," the Russian said. "Two of those were not your fault. Ramirez and Osei were zadrotas. Idiots."
The Russian downed his own glass. The sound of the shot cup hitting the bar was crystal clear over the pounding music.
"But I only know of three casualties. Squad Menace had trouble?"
Claymore laughed. "Trouble? That's a fucking understatement. Squad Menace ran into half the goddamn garrison in Novgorod. Two of them were killed by MECs."
"The third?" the Russian asked.
Claymore shrugged, and motioned for more liquor. The Russian obliged her, and she downed another ounce of intoxicating fluid.
"You'd call it friendly fire, but it was more like a fucking execution. I'm probably a pretty shit Commander for allowing two soldiers to kill their own squad leader."
"Shi is dead?" the Russian said.
"Absolutely," Claymore replied. "Dead as my fuckin' liver."
The Russian sighed. "You do yourself wrong."
"Wow, are we still on the pity train to Happy Town? Because if so, I want off."
Claymore felt the Russian' heavy paw fall on her shoulder.
"Listen, Commander," he said. His voice was tough – as unyielding as a piece of alien alloy. "This is war. I have seen war, and it is messy. The best we can do is to win. At all costs. Bradford's squad suffered because their troops could not listen to orders. Squad Menace suffered because we placed an idiot in command. We will adapt and move forward."
The Russian patted Claymore's shoulder.
"Like I say. You are fine, Commander. Just be strong."
Claymore grinned, but without feeling.
"You sound great," she said. "Memorize that. I want you to tell it to my replacement."
"Replacement?" the Russian said.
"Yeah," Claymore said, rising from her seat. "The actual Commander."
Claymore walked into the Commander's Quarters, prepared to make the greatest first impression this world had ever seen.
"Hey hey, Commander! I know we haven't met, but, boy, I've got some –"
She stopped as a green lump rose up to meet her.
"What the hell are you doing?" Bradford said.
Claymore stopped, suprised. She then noticed that Bradford was looking pretty shit. His eyes were stained red, and his entire body was tensed up like a cornered jungle cat.
"I just –" Claymore stuttered, before she saw the bed.
It was a long, mechanical device. Compared to the sleek design of the room, it was bulky and ugly. Knobs and lights had been placed with haphazard motivation across the length of it.
Cradled in this eyesore of a machine was the frail body of a woman. She appeared to be asleep, eyes shut in a knackered-after-one-too-many-pints kind of way. Her face, framed between tight fringes of black hair, was smooth and severe, with a touch of beauty that almost made Claymore question her sexuality.
"Is that," she asked. "The Commander?"
Bradford nodded, before throwing his ass against his seat.
"Twenty years," he groaned. "Twenty goddamn years!" Bradford slammed a hand against his seat, splintering the wood.
"Okay, what the fuck happened, Sweaters?" Claymore shouted back. Bradford was acting like a kid who just got pushed around at the playground, and that was seriously freaking her out.
Bradford pressed his face into his hands, kneading the folds of his skin.
"The aliens…" he said. "They – did something to her."
"No shit, Sweaters," Claymore said. "What did they do to her?"
"We found a chip," Bradford said, slow and heavy. "Lodged… inside the base of her skull. It had some kind of safeguard in it. When Tygan removed it, the Commander's life signs flatlined."
"Shit," Claymore said.
"We had to put her in an induced coma to save her," Bradford said. "But Tygan has no idea how long she'll have to be in it. He thinks it's going to be indefinite."
That last word was like a massive bitch slap to Claymore. What little strands of confidence she had left broke. The load they'd been holding up, which had been growing ever since she accepted this shitty position, fell onto Claymore's back like a ton of bricks.
"Fuck," was all she could manage. Her hands fell against her sides.
"FUCK!" she said again, louder.
She wished she could run back in the hallways, maybe bash her skull against one of those chrome walls and stay out of all this shit.
She'd been right. She should have never taken this fucking job.