X-Com Chronicles: Siege of New York

[Skonar]

--- Data Canister Storage, recovering avaliable data now.

 

 

 

--- All data classified to the highest levels. Unauthorized viewing of this data in a manner that harms the operational security of X-Com is considered Treason.

 

 

 

--- Checking Credentials.

 

 

 

--- Credentials Confirmed.

 

 

 

--- Compiling UFOpaedia.

 

 

 

--- Done.

 

 

 

--- Compiling list of commonly accessed events, 1997-2003, First Alien War.

 

 

 

01. Data Canister 437, X-Com Archives. UN formalization of Multiple Black Operations under Extraterrestial Investigations Taskforce, 1997

 

02. Data Canister 441, X-Com Archives. Siezed Astronomical data, Hawaii, 1997.

 

03. Data Canister 443, X-Com Archives. Abduction victim investigations : Anna Webber, United Kingdom. Janessa Greene, United States. Edward Konrads, Canary Islands.

 

04. Data Canister 495, X-Com Archives. Incidents in the former Soviet Union, reference Silo facility 5776-38974-12.

 

05. Data Canister 524, X-Com Archives. Recovery of 'lost' materials, Area 51, 1998.

 

06. Data Canister 495, X-Com Archives. Rogue Science Facilities, Texa--- Listing halted.

 

 

 

--- Entry '53' accepted.

 

 

 

--- Loading Data Canister 927, X-Com Archives. Siege of New York, 2000.

 

 

 

--- Displaying most commonly accessed file.

 

 

 

--- New York City, upper New York bay, December 23rd 2000, 16:13 EST.

 

 

 

The camera image shifted erratically with every fast turn the news helicopter made. Down below on the waters of the New York bay ferries surged away from the piers and docks of manhattan, leaving long white wakes.

 

"The events of the past four hours are beyond words, viewers. It feels like a lot longer. It seems to have started at the Mount Sinai Hospital, and even now there must be millions trying to get out of New York as the, the alien creatures seem to be attacking..."

 

The camera shuddered and panned abruptly, focussing in on the Brooklyn bridge, the road surface choked with vehicles and running men, women and children.

 

"Jesus. I always thought it was just conspiracy nuts. I guess the destroyed villages in Ecuador wern't hoaxes after all-"

 

The colours of the image washed out around a white cloud of billowing fire, obscuring the bridge.

 

"Oh Lord"

 

The brightness finally dimmed, rolling tongues of flame almost lazily dissipating, leaving behind cherry red glowing car shells, pools of metal dripping together and thick ash that began to pour off charred bones.

 

 

 

 

 

--- Highlights selected for maximum continuity now compiling.

 

 

 

--- Done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--- Phase One: Preliminary Investigations

 

 

 

 

 

1. --- Transcript of debriefing, X-Com operation leader in the field, Captain Darren Throop, 8573-3tf-XCM, 04/01/2001.

 

 

 

"I'm not sure who's responsible. At Oh-Three-Twenty-Two hours on the twenty third we had a brief track on a UFO at the Nova Scotia base, all indications were that it was probably a medium scout heading south along the east coast. It dropped off our screens about fifty kilometers out of New York. The base commander didn't bother to scramble an intercept.

 

"It was logged with the war room at the Pentagon and forgotten about. I guess they dispatched agents pretty soon after that. We were busy observing a trio of large UFOs holding steady in orbit over the North Atlantic. We knew one was a supply ship, but we couldn't identify the other two. They had our full attention, the base commander was certain that these UFOs were waiting around to support some kind of major assault... We didn't hear there was a problem in New York untill shortly after twelve hundred hours.

 

"Knowing what I do now, I wish the base commander had scrambled every damn Interceptor in the western hemisphere after that bloody scout..."

 

 

 

 

 

2. --- United Airlines, flight 844, En-Route to New York from Washington, December 23rd 2000, 07:16 EST.

 

 

 

There was music. A cold breeze. A field of sunflowers. Footstep by footstep, dragged towards the opposite end of the field.

 

"Peter?"

 

His vision swam, long ripples of colour, golden fields of sunflowers.

 

"Wake up now son."

 

The voice sounded like his father's. Someone walking towards him through the field, their hair shining gold in the sunlight.

 

"Give me your hand."

 

It was a little girl. Young, innocent, free. She had a sunflower in her hair.

 

"That's it. Squeeze my hand, Peter. Hard as you can."

 

She stepped up to Peter. Smiled. A tiny gnat fluttered onto her bare arm.

 

"You're not squeezing my hand, Peter. You're making me angry, boy..."

 

The girl started to thin, her flesh turning green as she rotted away. Her flesh scabbed away, her bones chipped into nothing, untill the sunflower was all that was left of her, containing her very essence, rooted into the ground.

 

"Squeeze my hand, Peter, or I'll get my belt..."

 

The field of sunflowers swayed gently, side to side. One by one the stalks bent over, dipping to the ground, petals shrivelling away and the stalks drying out, dessicated, as tiny black gnats flitted down onto them.

 

"Peter! Are you listening to me, Peter?"

 

The whole field was covered in a boiling swarm of gnats and everything was dying, bit by bit...

 

 

 

 

 

His head rocked back, his face stung.

 

"Conners?"

 

Peter opened his eyes experimentally. The flight attendant was staring at him, along with half the passengers in his range of vision.

 

His partner, Boris, slapped him in the face again. "Conners! Are you awake?"

 

He blinked slowly. His head felt gummy, tired. "Yeah, yeah. Jesus. What's up?"

 

"You were, ah, screaming, sir... Would you like something to drink?" The flight attendant asked, holding out something white in her hand.

 

Peter shook his head by way of reply, sending a dizzy roll through his senses. "I... I'm fine."

 

The flight attendant reached forward gently. The moist towelette brought an unpleasant chill to his flesh as she wiped underneath his nose.

 

Boris stared at him for a few moments, before looking up to the flight attendant. "He will have nothing, I will have a vodka, no ice."

 

"Yes sir, of course..." She folded the towelette neatly, placed it down on Peter's arm-rest neatly.

 

Peter lolled his head forward, stared down at the wet, white fabric, now stained with a fresh red smear.

 

Boris smirked, spoke loudly. "It must be the cabin pressure, Conners. Sometimes gives me nosebleeds too."

 

The other passengers looked away. The floor-show seemed to be over.

 

Peter swallowed, his mouth dry. "Yeah. Cabin pressure."

 

 

 

 

 

3. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 08:15 EST.

 

 

 

The early morning light was cold on the skin. It wasn't even capable of melting the frost gently dusting the winter grass. There was a long, dark path through the grass, where the frost had been trodden down into an icy mulch. Hunching his shoulders against the cold, Peter glanced back down at the thin road slicing through Central Park.

 

A news van, trailing thick clouds of exhaust, sputtered to a halt behind Peter's dark silver sedan, a beautiful new ford, effectively wedging it against the two police cruisers that had halted there.

 

"Jesus christ. Never rains but it pours."

 

Boris smirked vaguely as he ducked underneath the fluttering yellow police tape. "What are you complaining about? I'm the one who's driving," he said, his voice marked with a less than precise english accent.

 

"They're right behind the car's trunk. I left the fucking lasers in there. If we need firepower, they'll get the damn lasers on film."

 

"No problem." Boris pulled open his coat, and grinned. A Heckler and Koch mark 23 was wedged into a modified shoulder holster, along with a silencer.

 

"Oh, sure, like some forty-five slugs are going to nail a muton."

 

"The Mark 23 would not solve the problem of a muton, no..." Boris glanced down at the news truck significantly.

 

Peter glanced at Boris, an expression of distaste twisting his features. "I really hope you're joking, man."

 

Boris buttoned up his coat before patting the bulge of the Mk. 23 with a reassuring smile. "Just sharing the techniques I learned back in Russia. For all the reputation the American intelligence services had, you do not have a very strong stomach..."

 

"Guess not."

 

 

 

The park was walled in on all sides by skyscrapers, giving it a crowded feeling. Here, in the south-east corner, jammed up against downtown Manhattan, the looming towers gave the impression of being stuck at the bottom of a pit.

 

The park trees were stripped naked by the winter, branches coming together with sharp clicks in the faint breeze, but channeled through the canyon-like streets of Manhattan until it was concentrated into a blast of icy air that pulled with it dusty embers and ash.

 

Mounds of ash covered the ground for an area of about ten square meters, the still glowing hulks of blackened trees laying flattened and defeated.

 

"I'm guessin' it was an alien landing. Hull hot like the space-shuttle just flash-fried all these trees."

 

No, UFOs just dropped out of the sky, sliding on gravity waves. No need to get frictile with the atmosphere, and so, no heat. Peter continued to stare at the ground. The breeze had blown away most of the detail, but he could see the dinner-plate flat depression in the grass and ash.

 

The cop smirked, still warming his hands over the glowing embers of one of the park trees. "So. Guess you're gonna do that government cover-up thing, huh?"

 

Peter didn't bother to reply, but Boris did.

 

"A vagrant fire got out of control. What else can it be?"

 

Peter crouched down, swept his hand out a couple of inches over the ash. Bit by bit, black flecks sprang up and stuck to his fingertips, almost as if by magic.

 

"Heh. Right. Bullshit. Press is gonna have a field day on your ass, man. That murder across the park's gonna cinch it."

 

The alien weapons fired a kind of high energy plasma, which left the air ionized... along with a static electrical charge in whatever it hit, Peter reasoned. They must have blasted the trees down. He stood up, tugging a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the ash away from his hands.

 

"Sensationalist nonsense and propaganda," Boris sneered.

 

"Tell that to the vic, man. Guy was gutted, like in all those cattle mutilations."

 

Peter glanced from Boris to the cop, eyes narrowed. "We didn't hear about this. Who's the investigating officer?"

 

"Detective Brewer. Murder site's that way," the cop replied, pointing across the park. Between the naked and burnt trees, more news-vans seemed to be clogging the narrow streets through Central Park.

 

Peter nodded slowly. A dead body would be more interesting to the press than a landing site... it had the human element to it.

 

"Thanks for the tip, Officer. We'll go check that out," Peter said, turning and striding across the frosty grass.

 

Boris shook his head slowly once they were out of earshot. "Ah, for all the reputation the American Intelligence services had, you do not abide very much by standard operating procedures, Conners. Where are photographs and careful diagrams of landing site, hmm?"

 

Peter smirked back.

 

"It was just a vagrant fire. Right?"

 

 

 

"This ain't your jurisdiction, Feeb."

 

The detective was hostile, understandably so. His crime scene was surrounded by journalists straining at the yellow tape cordons, and uniformed officers were having one hell of a time keeping them from 'accidently' wandering inside.

 

His FBI identification, employment made current even though he hadn't worked for the organization since '97, wasn't enough, apparently. He flipped shut his wallet. "Actually it is," he said tiredly. "But I don't want to strong-arm you, Detective Brewer."

 

Brewer grimaced. "That some kind of threat, Agent Conners?"

 

Boris remained in the background, hiding his broad smirk behind one hand.

 

"Look, we think there might be some kind of serial killer out here that's striking across state lines. You know how these things snowball," Peter lied smoothly.

 

"Pat hasn't told me anything about any serial killers. What's the MO?"

 

That would be Patrick Mansley. Special Agent in Charge of one of the field offices in Manhattan. Peter had met him for about thirty seconds at a hostage situation six years ago. Damn.

 

Rolling over Peter's silence, Brewer pulled out a Cellphone and started dialing, watching Peter and Boris with suspicion.

 

Peter smiled confidently, despite the sick feeling in his gut. If Mansley hadn't been briefed about the UN's new and special relationship with the CIA and FBI, this was likely to get messy, and fast.

 

"Pat? It's Ted."

 

"It's been awhile. How are the kids?"

 

"Fine. Listen, are you at the office? I've got a couple of agents here trying to bust my balls with some serial killer story I haven't heard a damn thing about."

 

"Serial killer? No, nothing like that... who are they?"

 

"The one is Peter Conners, badge number..."

 

Peter shook his head as though in amusement, and produced the identification once more. He should really have been ready to quote the number by heart...

 

"Right, and the other guy...?" Brewer nodded questioningly to Boris.

 

Boris simply smiled and held out his own wallet and identification card.

 

"Boris Braczynski, badge number--"

 

Boris smirked, leaning aside to whisper to Peter. "And so once again a great conspiracy is unveiled by a common beat officer, eh?"

 

"Yeah, those stories aren't just propaganda," Peter whispered back.

 

"I haven't heard of either of these guys. Hang on, don't let them get out of your sight, I'll get my secretary to run a check on these two."

 

Brewer grinned, like a rat who'd just found a shotgun left on a table, aimed directly at a sleeping cat. "Give me a second, would you boys?" he asked, waving over a couple of uniformed officers.

 

Peter rolled his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

4. --- New York City, Manhattan, City Streets around the North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 09:12 EST.

 

 

 

Rudrick drew the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping away a trickle of whiskey. The bottle was empty, though. Where the hell was he going to find some more, now? Rudrick left the bottle and the bag with all the trash, getting up and lurching down the alley a few steps.

 

Just a little further down the alley, Morty tugged his coat tight around himself, crunching up all the little balls of newspaper he'd stuffed into his shirt. Petey was still poking the barrel, like he could make the fire spring back into life without any wood at all.

 

Well... there was still some whiskey left. Rudrick licked the back of his hand hopefully. It was real cold, pale, even.

 

Maybe Petey could get the fire going if he had some help.

 

"I gotta get me some gloves," Rudrick complained. He grabbed a spare stick, leaned over to see into the barrel.

 

Petey glanced up, one eye all bruised. "You leave me alone, man. I ain't giving you mine. They're mine. You know what that means?"

 

Rudrick poked at the mess of ash and embers. "I didn't mean that... and it's christmas anyway! Time to... time to give gifts."

 

"Yeah? What you going to give me?" Petey shoved Rudrick away from the barrel. "And you leave this alone! You can't just smash a fire! You gotta coax it, gentle like..."

 

Rudrick dropped his eyes to the floor. "Aw c'mon. Morty! Give us some of your newspapers, man."

 

Morty looked up, eyes shockingly white against his dark skin. "Nuh. You go find y'own trash to burn." He shifted, the newspapers stuffed into his coat rustling audibly, a crude form of insulation.

 

"It's all soaked with snow... Come on man"

 

"Git! Git! You leamme alone, I worked hard to get my newspaper, I ain't giving it up so you guys can just burn it"

 

"Yeah, you hear that? Morty worked hard for his newspaper. You quit slackin, Rudrick. Go find some trash."

 

"Yeah, yeah, whatever..." Rudrick glumly stuck his hands under his armpits. "You guys got any whiskey or beer or somethin'?"

 

"Git"

 

Rudrick backed away. "I was just askin'..."

 

 

 

Rudrick could smell smoke. Smoke meant fire, and fire meant he could warm up his hands, and maybe bum some booze off whoever started it. In summer, when people had barbecues in central park, he could sometimes guilt them into feeding him burgers, too.

 

The smell of fire, why... it was just about the same as it was in summer. From central park, too. Except there were cops everywhere, and a big russian guy and two smaller ones all getting into a car, journalists everywhere. Trudigng acorss the frosty remains of grass, Rudrick tried his luck at the edge of one of the crowds up against the police tape, stretching it out so they could get closer to the middle of the park.

 

"You guys got any coffee or spare change or anything?"

 

A camera turned on him. "You see what happened?"

 

"Uhm, yeah. Yeah I did." Rudrick stuffed his hands under his armpits again. "You got a blanket maybe?"

 

"What did you see?" One of the journalists shoved a little microphone at him.

 

Rudrick shifted from foot to foot. His toes were all numb, now. "Uh. There was a guy. A really big guy... And they... uh... uh... shot him... you got any spare change, man?"

 

"Shot him?" The journalist glanced at his partner skeptically. One by one the microphones and cameras disappeared, along with his chances of some spare change.

 

"Uh, no, I meant... stabbed? Maybe?"

 

One of the cops manning the tape perimiter waved Rudrick away. "Get outta here, nothing to see."

 

Rudrick grimaced, and turned away.

 

 

 

It wasn't all that difficult to duck under the yellow cop tape near the whole big burn site, where there was lots of half-burnt up wood which would burn really easily... and then maybe he could get the rest of the guys to give him some booze. But then another cop yelled at him to go away, arrest him if he took any, because it was a crime scene.

 

Rudrick hadn't wanted to get arrested. Last time he was in jail someone tried to shiv him, then another time some guys tried to make him their... God, it just wasn't worth thinking about.

 

Halfway back out of the park, though, Rudrick remembered how warm those holding cells they put you in first were. And he'd gotten a free meal.

 

Screw the guys, they could get their own firewood.

 

Rudrick turned off the path, started through the trees. It'd be a shortcut, back to the side of the park with that big pile of ash in it.

 

His steps crunched over the icy ground, feet slipping on the dead grass every so often. The tree branches all around cracked together in the wind.

 

Rudrick kept his head down, stepping through underneath a pair of trees. Fragments of ice hit his shoulder.

 

He glanced up. Frost was cracking off this big black lumpy thing in the tree. Smoothly it extended one arm, then another, with crab-like pincers.

 

"What the..."

 

It dropped out of the tree. Rudrick barely had time to scream before he was pinned against the ground, and there was a sudden wet warmth through his clothing...

 

"Oh no, Oh jesus no"

 

The claws shredded off his shirt.

 

"Not like in prison, not like in-"

 

A sudden wet pressure, a sucking, like a kiss... a sharp peircing pain.

 

"No, no, no.... No! I... oh... Gggngh"

 

Language deserted him. Rudrick could only think about running. Running and hiding. Somewhere dark, somewhere warm...

 

The black creature lifted itself off him, hissed once, and filled with terror, Rudrick ran.

 

 

 

 

 

5.--- New York City, Manhattan, 102nd Street East, Police Department 23rd precinct, December 23rd 2000, 10:45 EST.

 

 

 

"This is bull."

 

Conners glanced back at Brewer. "Look, Mansley told you we were agents, right?"

 

"Out of his own offices. For ten years. And he's never heard of you before?" Brewer shoved his hands into his pockets. "You guys don't belong in New York. So let's make this quick, so you can get out."

 

Boris leaned back on one foot, surveying the police station's front office message board. "Is very nice city. You are sure we can't stay? Is so, picturesque," he commented, slapping the photograph of a murder victim with the back of his fingers.

 

Brewer glanced over and spotted what Boris was staring at on the board. He winced, looking away immediately. "Jesus. You sicko."

 

Boris smirked. "Sicko with jurisdiction."

 

Well. Technically speaking, their cover hadn't been blown. Conners felt that, if nothing else, put them in the clear. An hour spent waiting for red tape to clear itself up and dealing with an extremely panicked Mansley hadn't helped any.

 

"Anyway." Conners shook his head. "Unless you want to see what other surprises we have under our hats, we'd like the investigation files now. And the body."

 

"I'll get copies made."

 

"The originals. All of them."

 

Brewer grimaced. "Wanna sleep with my wife, too?"

 

Boris seemed to be seriously considering the offer.

 

 

 

 

 

6. --- New York City, Queens, 164th Street, Queens Hospital Center, December 23rd 2000, 11:35 EST.

 

 

 

Traffic had been murder. Almost literally. Well, manslaughter, at least. A drunk had strolled across the road, screamed at Boris and Conners in their car, and fled for an alleyway. How in God's name Boris had managed to stop the sedan on Manhattan's icy streets, Conners did not know.

 

"Guy going around with a torn shirt like that, at this time of year..."

 

"You are still stuck on that? I tell you this for free, Peter. America is full of vagrants. Winter is time they are culled by the cold, so next year more men failed by capitalism can take thier place, yes?"

 

Conners quirked an eyebrow. "Is that rhetoric, or do you believe it?"

 

"Make it easy to ignore suffering." Boris shrugged. "Forget about it. Focus on task at hand."

 

Getting caught up with the local police, a ride across New York, over the East River, a surly partner. So far this was shaping up to be a great day. And now, waiting for a bloody coroner in an empty exam room on top of everything else. And Conners' jet-lagged biological clock thought it was time for lunch.

 

Conners sniffed at the air. "What's that smell? Damn, I'm hungry..."

 

"A dead body." The Coroner leaned in the office's doorframe and pulled off his gore stained surgical gloves, making the latex snap in the process.

 

Boris nudged Conners. "And Brewer thought I was sick one"

 

The examiner cast a skeptic eye over the two of them. "You called about this morning's John Doe from Central Park?"

 

Brewer, grimacing, nodded in reply. "That's the guy."

 

"Didn't have time to do more than an external examination."

 

"And?" Conners enquired, an eyebrow lifted.

 

"Extremely messy. Looked like some kind of nasty flesh eating bacteria with being mauled by an animal on the side."

 

Conners exchanged a glance with Boris."Mind if we have a look?"

 

"Body's gone," the coroner held up his hands defensively. "Hazmat team from the CDC."

 

"Shit. You have any documentation on hand?"

 

"They took the file. You'd have to ask 'em for copies."

 

Another look was exchanged. Boris nodded slowly.

 

Conners watched the coroner for a few moments. Tried to pull back the tickle from the back of his mind, the sting in his nose, the wind in his hair, the coroner's eyes, watching from behind the coroner's eyes, a feeling of-

 

"Jesus, you okay?" The Coroner stared.

 

Conners grimaced, lifted his hand to his face, felt the seeping stickiness. "Yeah, yeah." He nodded abruptly, flicked his hand at Boris, made a thumbs down gesture.

 

Boris's face went hard as he recognized the hand signal's meaning.

 

Conners turned away, headed towards a basin and faucet. Not quickly enough to miss Boris reaching past the coroner to slam the exam room door.

 

Conners rinsed under his nose, tilted his head back, pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

Out came Boris's gun. The Mk. 23 had a malignant gleam. Boris pulled a lengthy silencer from the shoulder holster, screwing it in with three quick twists.

 

"What the fuck is this?" The Coroner backed against a wall.

 

"You seem to be living under illusion. Illusion that you have rights. Right to privacy, right to-"

 

"Look man I don't want any-"

 

The sharp smack of the butt of Boris's pistol against the Coroner's face echoed in the dingy exam room.

 

"-right to speak, right to vote, right to live. Right to anything. This is the illusion your decadant society has given you. The illusion that you live in democracy, yes?"

 

The water was cold. The burning in Conner's nose lessening. Maybe it was higher up. Maybe it wasn't even in his nose. Maybe it wasn't anywhere physical. Halfway between a memory of having his nose broken as a kid and the way his gut churned.

 

"It is pleasant illusion, yes, but still illusion. This, this is not illusion. It is gun. Gun is what I use to make illusions go away. Sometimes forever. This it can also do to democracy."

 

The way Conners' hair would stand up on the back of his neck when Becky wasn't home. The way he felt about his father. The way they trained him in that damn base carved into bedrock outside of Scotland. The way those damn skinny little ones would put things in your head. The way his father's boots creaked outside the bedroom door.

 

"Now you have big illusion that you can hide secrets. Ah... Ha ha! You have also pissed your pants! Perhaps this is a sign you are no longer having this illusion?"

 

The hollow noise of the belt. Smack. Smack. You've been a very naughty boy, Peter. A downright malicious little brat. Now take my hand, boy, and maybe we won't have to put you in military academy, set you straight. Take my hand. Squeeze it. That's right...

 

"Excuse me a moment. Conners"

 

"Ow" Conners winced, rubbed his shin. "Why'd you kick me in the leg?"

 

"You are not paying attention to the wonderful testimony our friend here is going to give us."

 

Conners glanced down at the coroner. His pants were wet, his upper lip was bleeding, and there was the silencer of Boris' Mk. 23 wedged up against his eye, forcing the eyelid open.

 

"You got towels?"

 

The coroner lifted one arm, pointed at a cabinet.

 

Conners nodded. "Thanks." Maybe he was becoming hemophiliac. That'd be great. Never stop bleeding.

 

"Now then. You have no illusions, yes? So you will now tell me all I want to know. These men, they were not the CDC, yes?"

 

"No, uhm, I..." The coroner spluttered. "They had ID but they just lifted the body and left. I've never had the Center for Disease Control do anything like that! Normally they're all paperwork and a million questions"

 

Boris nodded sympathetically, pulling back the slide of the pistol. It rammed forward with a thud, an unspent round of ammunition flicking out of the gun and rolling into a corner. The coroner quivered, eye watering uncontrollably. The white was starting to redden around the silencer.

 

"My present to you. Now I can shoot you only twelve times, not thirteen."

 

Conners opened the cabinet, pulled out a towel, scrubbed it against his face. His father was dead. He had to remember that. Dead and he'd never get the chance to say that he was sorry, never get the chance to have his father forgive him, never get a chance to resolve the thousands of questions in his head.

 

"Oh Jesus! No! I can tell you more! The body'd been dead since six AM! The bacterial cultures are still cooking but I don't know if there's really anything! There was this, this, goop, acidic goop in him! Way too acid to be stomach acid! I took photos"

 

Boris cocked his head. "Photos? That the 'CDC' men did not take?"

 

"Yes! They're over there! In the cabinet! Filed under today's date"

 

"I think maybe," Boris said, pulling the slide back, letting another round flick out of the weapon, "you are going to live to see end of day."

 

Conners put down the bloody towel, opened the cabinet tiredly. Flicked through the folders.

 

"I don't know anything else! I called the CDC! They said I shouldn't worry and they'd handle it"

 

Conners found the folder, pulled it up onto the counter. Pulled it open. A stack of polaroids greeted him. The hair on the back of his neck pricked up.

 

"You dialed usual number?"

 

"Yes"

 

"And usual man answer?"

 

"Yes. No! I don't know"

 

The third one in the stack showed part of the chest. The rest of it was torn open, bloody and fleshy. Ribs had been neatly shorn off. Too crude to have been surgical, though. Maybe bolt cutters. The flesh that was left was pale, drained of blood. Except for a round bruise below the man's nipple.

 

Conners dropped the photograph and clutched his hands to his face.

 

A bruise with a slim wound in the center.

 

"Oh shit."

[Skonar]

7. --- New York City, Manhattan, City Streets around the North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 11:50 EST.

 

 

 

"Rudrick"

 

Morty pulled his coat in tighter around himself, kicking a can along the alleyway. "This is nuts."

 

"We can't get the fire goin' anyway man." Petey shrugged, stepping around an icy puddle. "Besides, that dumbass might've got himself hurt."

 

"So why don't we call an ambulance or a cop and go see if there's a soup kitchen open?"

 

"Because Rudrick's an okay guy when he's had his liquor, okay?" Petey grunted, flipping open the lid of a dumpster.

 

Morty winced, shuffling up next to Petey to dig around inside. "I'm just sayin' he's a dang louse and it serves him right if we forget about him."

 

Petey looked over an empty bottle, gave it a hopeful shake. Nothing sloshed around, but he kept it anyway for the deposit. "Yeah, whatever. Rudrick! Where the heck are you?"

 

Petey wandered further along the alley. Morty slammed the dumpster lid in disgust with a hellish clang.

 

A scream echoed down the alley as if in reply.

 

"Oh damn. Rudrick!? You okay man?" Petey started running, cracking open a puddle of ice.

 

Morty grimaced, following in his usual shuffling gait, trying to avoid getting his feet wet.

 

Pete dragged plastic garbage bags off a moaning huddle of shivering limbs. "Rudrick? Aww crap"

 

Petey reached out to shake him by the shoulder. Rudrick looked pale, his clothes were all torn up. Like he'd be cold as all hell. But no, Rudrick felt hot to the touch.

 

"Shit. Rudrick's high on something weird, Morty," Petey said, glancing up, away from the swinging fist.

 

"Leamme a-a-al-looone" Rudrick wailed, shoving Petey down. Morty could only watch as Rudrick smashed his fist into Petey's face again and again and-

 

"Get the fuck off me you shit"

 

Petey threw Rudrick off him. There was a cracking noise as Rudrick fell. Rudrick tried to get onto his feet, fell to a shaking crouch. He hacked up a thin misty spray of blood, then spat a thicker glob of it, fell over. His ribcage shivered. Didn't move other than that.

 

Morty blinked. "Oh jesus. We gotta get him to a hospital."

 

Petey sat up, wiping at his face with one gloved hand. His other eye was bruising up now too. "Him? Him?! What about me?"

[Skonar]

8. --- New York City, Over the East River and heading into Manhattan, the Triborough Bridge, 12:06

 

 

 

Boris leaned on the car horn, sending out a high pitched wail as he wove through traffic with his foot flat. Conners hung onto his seatbelt and his cellphone.

 

"Pick up pick up pick up..."

 

"This is high priority line you are calling, Peter?"

 

Boris overtook a heavy truck, weaving briefly into the oncoming traffic as the east river dissappeared below, Ward Island flashing by.

 

"Yes. Damn it. Where's the nearest securable line?"

 

Boris shrugged, slowing down behind a van. He beat on the car horn. "Fucking American drivers..."

 

"United Nations library, languages section."

 

Conners wiped sweat from his forehead. "Member number Three Five Six Seven, Nine J P."

 

A brief pause. "Thankyou for calling in, Mister Byers."

 

"That's, Uh, Jesus." Conners shook his head. The confirmation sequence would take another thirty seconds. "That's Geoffry Byers. Correct."

 

"Yes. Can I help you with a book, Mister Byers?"

 

"Yes. I need to know the print number of your copy of- Oh fuck it. It's a situation Thirty-Twelve, red, New York City."

 

Dead silence greeted him. Conners tried not to look as Boris hit the turnpike at speed, narrowly skimming past a station-wagon and onto the bridge from Ward's Island and back to Manhattan.

 

"Could you repeat that please?"

 

"Situation Thirty-Twelve. Red. New York. Probably in Central Park."

 

More silence.

 

"Please make your way to JFK International airport and go to the evacuation point."

 

Conners shook his head. "I don't think you understand. We're heading back to Central Park. Maybe there's still time to catch this thing."

 

"This is an interceptable call. Your message is recieved. Continue contact from a secure location."

 

The phone clicked.

 

Conners glanced across at Boris. Boris kept his eyes on the road.

 

"So one hatched at Six AM, two hours after the UFO trace. It goes adult at Eight. Twenty fresh ones. They hatch at ten... and just went adult. Jesus. We might have four hundred hatching within another two hours."

 

Boris nodded grimly. "Unless they bite young. In which case is more like some thousands, yes?"

 

"You drop me off at the park. Then get to a secure line. Maybe at Brewer's precinct station. That's just a couple of blocks out from the park."

 

Boris quirked an eyebrow. "What, you go alone? You are kidding me, Peter."

 

Peter shook his head. "I'm used to it."

 

"Is your butt."

[Skonar]

9. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Mount Sinai Hospital, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.

 

 

 

Nurse Jennings couldn't stand the ER. Normally it'd have been fine. But taking a long shift over the holidays while her husband was home really ticked her off.

 

"Miss?"

 

A pair of grubby hands were on the reception counter. Extremely grubby. They were owned by an African-American hobo.

 

She sighed. "What seems to be the problem, Morty?" She knew the bum. Soemtimes he came in hoping to score some painkillers. Normally not untill it was painfully late.

 

"My friends, they..." She followed his gaze.

 

Another man in a coat with bits of newspaper sticking out of it shoved a limp figure into a waiting room seat. He cradled his face. "Bastard loosened my teeth. My good teeth."

 

Morty grimaced. "My pal, Rudrick. He ODed on some real bad shit, miss. Real bad..."

 

Nurse Jennings slapped her forehead and yelled over a shoulder to the other nurses, "Oh Jesus. Hey, guys! We've got another of those weird ODs on our hands" Great. Lunch break was officially over before it had begun.

[Skonar]

10. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.

 

 

 

Conners bailed out of the Sedan, racing around to the back. Boris popped the trunk. Conners flicked it open, clanging on its hinges, and he flipped up the hatch to get into the car's spare tyre well. The tyre was missing. In its place was a pair of rifles. A metal framework and insulating stock, pistol grip and handguard. The front end was just a lens.

 

Conners plucked one up, two of the heavy red canisters containing the gasses needed to pressurise the laser chamber, and a considerably smaller box marked with the three sided nuclear hazard trefoil. He slotted the box containing the energizing isotopes into the steel casing, screwed the gas canister in, and tripped the ignition switch. Almost immediately he could feel heat pouring off the laser rifle.

 

Boris leaned out of the driver's side window. "There will be witnesses..."

 

Conners narrowed his eyes. "Boris, one way or another, there will be witnesses."

 

"You have spare gas cylinders?"

 

Conners patted the heavy red can sticking out of his jacket pocket. "Enough burntime for an hour and a half."

 

"Alright. Don't get yourself killed." Boris held out the ruggedized plastic frame of a proximity tracker. "You're not going to take a radio?"

 

Conners took it and wound the strap over his shoulder, flicked it on. The main body of the unit shuddered, the display under armoured glass coming on with a chime. A quick sweep in the direction of nearby trees elicited a blurry pattern of swaying branches.

 

"No. I'm set. Get out of here, call down everything you damn well can."

 

Boris nodded grimly.

 

The car left a long yellow smear on the tracker's screen.

 

There was a lot of ground to cover.

 

Peter started walking.

[Skonar]

11. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Mount Sinai Hospital, December 23rd 2000, 12:12 EST.

 

 

 

The doctor flashed lights into the patients eyes, testing response. "Where the hell's that narcan?"he yelled, trying to wedge open the patient's jaws to check the airway.

 

The bum, Rudrick, spluttered. His face was yellowy. Kidney malfunction? Nurse Jennings bent over his body, running a stethoscope over his bare chest, searching for a heartbeat. She grimaced.

 

The sound was strange. Like slithering. What the hell did that mean?

 

The flesh underneath her twitched. Something pulled away from the pressure. Inside the bum's gut. She pulled her hands back, staring.

 

"What the fuck?"

 

"Nurse?" The doctor glared at her across the patient.

 

Three sharp cracks. Ribs snapping.

 

Everyone stared.

 

The torso bulged out. Black claws pierced through the flesh, from the inside, and a bloody goo seeped from the wound almost immediately.

 

The screams of the medical staff were only of secondary interest. The main show was the quivering body, while the claws, pincerlike, scissored through the skin.

 

The body rolled off the table, pushing over the doctor.

 

Almost like a man discarding his coat, the thing pulled Rudrick off itself. Snapping its claws, it unfolded itself, covered in oozing gore with a glossy shine. Two antennae-like spines rose and stiffened, bouncing in the air over the creature's shoulders. Its eyes were tiny, face a grinning dead skull with blood and acidic juices dripping down.

 

It stepped out of the rag-like remains.

 

It paused to grab the doctor with its pincers, hauling him to his feet, as it stood on backward-jointed legs with not-quite feet. What seemed like a skull's grinning teeth proved to be tiny plates, moving like the mandibles of a crab to open. A thick rod of muscle shot out from between the mandible plates, latched onto the doctor's chest.

 

He flailed, screamed.Was released with an almost disdainful, casually annoyed squeal from the creature. His arm was hanging at a godawful angle with blood seeping into his white coat.

 

Nurse Jennings screamed. "Security! Security"

 

The creature repeated the process, jabbing its head at another of the nurses, before plowing through the room's swinging doors and into the waiting room.

 

The doctor looked up at Nurse Jennings. His face was twisted in agony. He grabbed out for at the crash cart while scrabbling to his feet, his fingers slipped. He didn't seem to notice that he'd cut himself on a scalpel. He didn't care much, either, raising one enraged fist over Nurse Jennning's head.

 

Drool poured from his lips as he swung, clipped her across the forehead, sent ringing pains through her body.

 

He slurred some words into an angry scream, brought his fist down a second time, a third time. She saw him raising his fist again, but didn't really feel the fourth blow. Or the fifth, or the sixth, or the seventh...

[Skonar]

12.--- New York City, Manhattan, 102nd Street East, Police Department 23rd precinct, December 23rd 2000, 12:17 EST.

 

 

 

Boris tweaked aside the blinds of the office he'd taken over for his call. The American police were getting agitated. Clearing their desks of files and making phone calls.

 

Good. The busier the circuits, the more difficulty in singling out the single encrypted signal on the station's hardened line.

 

"Da. Yes. At least one Chryssalid, it hatch at about six AM."

 

There was a grunt from the other end of the line, made tinny by the encryption rig the phone had been plugged through. "That correlates with a signal we had logged at about four AM. Medium scout. Though there's no indication anything in that class has equipment to handle terror units."

 

Boris rolled his eyes and stepped away, letting the blinds snap shut again. "That is for engineers to decide. Me, I have evidence, autopsy photos, with almost textbook implantation wound. Some prick has also taken away body. Is suspicious."

 

"Yeah." The controller's voice betrayed his disinterest. "Look, I'm kicking this up to the War-room on highest priority and I've logged notices on GEOSCAPE, but I need you and Conners ready to Evac on ten minute's notice."

 

"What are we meant to do? Sit in airport?"

 

"I'm not going to argue about this, Braczynski. Ten minute standby. Those are your orders, buddy."

 

"Bullshit! You want evac, that means you think there will be combat response. What is response team going to do? Cruise down streets in Skyranger shouting 'Here Chryssalid, nice boy, come play with us'? You need eyes on ground to find these things."

 

"Yeah, well I'm responsible for making sure you guys aren't killed. Which reminds me. Trewitt was chewing my ass earlier."

 

Boris growled. "What does that bastard want?"

 

"Some girl in his offices died of an aneurysm or something late last night. Crazy fool wanted to know if Pete was alright, he seemed to think whatever it was might be catching."

 

Boris risked another glance through the blinds. Fewer police now. He watched one pull on a jacket and hurry out the open office outside's doors. "Peter quit that black operations bullshit. He is perfectly healthy, Da? Da. End of discussion."

 

"Fine."

 

"Will make contact when we reach standby status." Boris slapped the phone into the reciever and began unplugging the encryption rig.

 

Just then the door burst open. "What the hell is going on in my city?" Brewer demanded, sweat sheening his forehead as he pushed past Boris to get at the sidearm hanging from the office's coat rack.

 

"Hm? What now?" Boris enquired, allowing icy calm to take him, brushing off the lapels of his jacket.

 

"Hostage situation at the goddamn hospital. Mount Sinai, just a couple of blocks down. What the hell is going on?"

 

Boris quirked an eyebrow. "Aliens invading."

 

Brewer stared at Boris for a moment, then pulled his coat on over his shoulder holster, heading back out. "Very funny, jackass."

[Skonar]

13. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 12:20 EST.

 

 

 

The wind blew fragments of caution tape over the dead brown grass, flittering like butterflies. Peter ground the tape into the dirt with his heel, grimacing vaguely. The crime scene had been abandoned. A couple of cola cans leaned next to an abandoned cardboard box filled with the refuse of a news crew, abandoned in the scurry to the next story.

 

Peter jammed down the trigger of the proximity scanner, swinging it side from side as he crossed into the dense clutter of trees. When he released the trigger, the screen filled with foggy yellow traces surrounding a central blob. The swaying trees. His own moving body.

 

He glanced up, a sick feeling taking hold in his gut. The world was almost in black and white. Snowdrifts and bland yellow-brown grass with almost black tree-trunks shining with ice and meltwater, sun almost at its peak and throwing sharply defined shadows.

 

His shoulder ached from the weight of carrying the laser with one hand, with its stock jammed into his elbow, held barrel up with the still burning mechanisms away from his body.

 

The grass crunched with errant snowflakes as he wound his way past the snowdrifts, moving deeper into the tree covered hills of Central Park.

 

"Come out and play, sweetie," he breathed, jamming down the tracker's trigger again, swinging it around awkwardly with his left hand. "Come find your snack." He released the trigger button. The slight yellow fog of swaying branches clouded the screen as if he'd breathed on it. But something in the cloudy pattern wasn't right. It was all just a haze, fading as the tracker's charge burnt out, but there was something there, in the foggy cloud of motion surrounding him.

 

Blood droplets dripped onto the tracker's screen. Peter leaned his head back, snorting down the blood-clogged mucous in his sinuses, and found his eyes trailing up, up at the spindly black tree-branches, glossy with ice. Shiny as the carapace of an insect.

 

He had just enough time to drop the tracker in its straps and scrabble for the heat-shielded foregrip of the laser before the chitinous claws of a Chryssalid, dropping from the branches above, raked down his back with the burning agony of tearing flesh and hurled him into the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

14. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, X-Com Intelligence Services Control Hub 7, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.

 

 

 

Alana Bryant stared at the computer screen for several shocked seconds at the 'disconnected' icon, flashing brightly over an automatically generated transcript.

 

 

Yes. I need to know the print number of your copy offal kitt. It's a situation Thirty-Twelve, red, New York City.

 

 

A little numbly she reached up and corrected 'Offal Kitt' to 'of- Oh fuck it.'

 

She saved the transcript, placed it into the automatically designated folder, and pulled up the codebook file, hoping she was wrong.

 

 

Section thirty - Encounters of the Third kind, confirmedly hostile in nature, belonging to races under groupings A through E.

 

 

That was inclusive of everything from sectoids to silacoids.

 

She ran her cursor down the list, untill she found the twelvth entry. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

 

 

Type Twelve - Species Group D-2 Nonsentient Parasitic Terror Weapon / Chryssalid

 

 

The colour code attached to the entry was similarly understated.

 

 

Code Red - Active Infection in open environment.

 

 

Alana took a long breath before closing the codebook file. She took the time to print out the transcript with an appended codebook translation and give it to the watch supervisor. She then left the watch room, ignoring the protestations of her watch supervisor, went to her bunk and pulled out the photograph of her two children, aged Four and Nine years old respectively, and took the time to kiss each of their faces, both shining at the eldest's birthday party last june, back in Queens.

 

She then unholstered her service automatic, pulled back the slide to chamber a round, and shot herself through the right temple.

 

Her body, while found almost immediately, was not put into the morgue untill twelve hours later, long after the emergency klaxons had stopped ringing.

[Skonar]

--- Phase Two: Response

 

 

 

15. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, Base Command and Control Center, December 23rd 2000, 12:18 EST.

 

 

Javier Deerman, Colonel, 5831-9ct-XCM, highest rank possible for a military man, wiped sweat off his forehead, staring through the Triple-C's blast doors, yawning wide open. Soldiers marched past, stamping feet no competition for the ready-alert klaxon. Those going to the right were typically still in their underwear or off-hours coveralls, some wiping sleep from their eyes. Those moving to the left were marching by squads, wearing dark urban camouflage with G3 battle rifles over their shoulders of a model so generic they'd be almost impossible to trace, belt pouches full of grenades and ammunition which had supposedly been delivered to an Israeli army base, and a big blank patch over their shoulder that always made him feel uneasy.

 

His men couldn't even wear dogtags.

 

He turned to his Captain, and opened his mouth to ask Jennson how his squad was. But as of that intercept two days ago, Jennson wasn't his captain anymore. Jennson was a vague smear on a couple of plates of alien alloy down in storage and a form letter that had yet to be mailed informing his family of his death in a car accident on whichever base he was supposed to be serving on in the 'real' world.

 

No. His Captain here was Throop. Formerly just some face in lineup. A sergeant a few weeks ago, Javier thought. He'd never really noticed the man, despite signing his promotion papers in a desperate attempt to fill out needed officer positions. Was trying not to remember the earnest look of respect on Throop's face.

 

"How's your squad, Lieut- er, Captain?"

 

"Teams NS-Two through NS-Four are still gearing up. NS-One is on ready-five standby to board, sir." Throop cleared his throat. "Depending on how the ranger pilots are handling things, we should be good to get into the air by twelve-thirty. We push the airframe hard, we'll be down by thirteen-thirty."

 

Javier bit his lip. He reached out and slapped Throop on the back. "Go join your men, Throop. We'll be sending the other teams as soon as possible."

 

The captain nodded, hefting his G3 over a shoulder, a laser pointer you could buy off the internet from a hundred places clipped to the barrel, and saluted. "Sir. We'll clean this up fast."

 

Javier watched the man go. He couldn't even be thirty yet. Maybe he'd had some officer's training before he'd been sucked into X-Com, Javier didn't know. He swallowed down his guilt.

 

"Captain?"

 

Throop paused at the door, glancing back with a sickening kind of trust. "Sir?"

 

"Good luck, uh... Darren."

 

Throop saluted again, pausing to pull on his helmet. "Thankyou, Sir. Respectfully... If you can't greet me when I'm back, Sir, I'll save you a good spot on the ferry." He nodded, and joined the moving soldiers in the halls outside.

 

Javier relaxed, only a little. At least the newbie captain knew what he was getting into.

 

He turned, watching as the broad GEOSCAPE display threw up a bright red tag circled over New York City. Almost immediately a phone started ringing.

 

Javier shut his eyes. Nova Scotia had been first on alert, thanks to that woman at the intelligence hub who'd just shot herself. And now the intelligence she'd had was confirmed.

 

"Sir? It's the war room on hotline one..."

 

And first on the ball, Javier would be the one left coordinating this mess. And taking the blame.

[Skonar]

16. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue and East 102nd Street, December 23rd 2000, 12:32 EST.

 

 

 

"This is fantastic, just fantastic."

 

The woman jostling Boris's arm elbowed him aside with a strength he found surprising. He was even forced to lean on the heavy police barriers blocking the road, beyond which trucks of police full of technicians continued to pull up.

 

The space she'd shoved into existance was rapidly taken up by a burly man with a news camera. Boris found himself recoilling away, giving up his front-row place at the spectacle just a few dozen meters away from the Mount Sinai hospital center, purely to avoid the man's body odour.

 

Either that, or a long ingrained fear of cameras, Boris wasn't sure which. As it was, he'd been unable to find a way through the mess of traffic and closed off roads around the city precinct and the hospital by car, so, he'd switched to moving on foot, then joining the crowds trampling the street and even the gardens of the nearby office blocks to get a good view of the unfolding excitement.

 

In America, every tragedy is good for spectators, or so he'd learned.

 

"We have unconfirmed reports of a gang of drug crazed- No, wait. Do people even say drug crazed anymore?"

 

"Hell if I know, Ellen." The man with the camera shrugged, before resuming the filming of the building facade about a half block down, surrounded by police cruisers.

 

Boris elbowed the woman heavily. "You want story? Is biiig story. Aliens invading."

 

She spun on him, as best she could in the crush, and fixed him down with a narrowed, icy gaze.

 

"Leave town now," Boris advised, grinning broadly now. "Or the big headed aliens, they will get you."

 

"Oh just fuck off man. Rodney, Rodney, can you get rid of this guy?"

 

The fat man lowered the camera, scratched under an armpit, and glared at Boris.

 

Boris smiled in response, and backed off. "Is not my life." With that, he started moving to the back of the crowds again, up to Park Avenue. From there maybe he could find a footpath into Central Park before people could find out if the 'drug crazed madmen' were still things that could be called men.

 

Boris suspected that such an idea was purely optimism.

[Skonar]

17. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, Base Command and Control Center, December 23rd 2000, 12:40 EST.

 

 

 

"Hey now, I know the reaction plan for an attack on New York hasn't been finalized, but I thought we were meant to be carrying the ball on this one?"

 

Javier rubbed at his mouth, staring over the GEOSCAPE display while Colonel Powers, base commander at Houston, continued to drawl away. There was just too much activity to keep an eye on all at once. Down near Peru, a pair of interceptors were chasing down a medium sized UFO. There was an operation in central germany trying to find a downed pilot. Over the Indian Ocean a lone interceptor pilot was making the rough decision on wether or not to bail out over water, a couple of Scouts hovering around his damaged plane like a couple of vultures.

 

Closer to home a trio of radar pings were still in orbit over the Atlantic ocean, moving a hundred kilometers closer to North America's western seaboard every hour, almost lazily hanging up there.

 

A sharper accent, more Bostonian. Colonel Eddings, the North American theatre's coordinator. "A - It's not confirmed as an attack yet. Right now it's just a sighting, even if it is worrying. B - We can't switch to a set of protocols not everyone's been briefed on. Colonel Deerman. This mess is on your table right now."

 

One of them was a supply ship, they'd gotten a flyby before it'd moved up into orbit, an interceptor flight over Kenya that was on it's way back to base. He'd been right in his earlier assumption - a task force to support some kind of attack. There was the brief wail of a new track - a medium sized ship lifting out of the Amazon basin, heading north.

 

"Deerman?"

 

"Javier? You walk away from your console there buddy?"

 

Javier pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm here."

 

"What's the plan, Colonel?"

 

His career was on the line here. If he over-responded, clamped down on this hard, he'd be out within a week with internal investigations claiming he was unfit for breaching covert guidelines. If he under-responded... he didn't want to think about it. Regardless. It'd be over.

 

"I think... I think that right now, we've just got information out of one of our agent teams. We're not picking up anything obvious on the media. But as a precaution... Powers, I'd appreciate it if you could get one of your skyrangers in the air with full squads kitted for urban warfare, and send your third ranger up here, we don't have enough if this turns nasty."

 

"Aw hell, man. When are you getting in that damn replacement?"

 

Replacement. Because one of the two Skyrangers assigned to Nova Scotia had been knocked out of the sky after dropping a team in the everglades. A team that'd disappeared. A list of twelve names with MIA stamped over them pinned to the board in his office and a visit from internal investigations over 'wasting resources'.

 

"Whenever. Eddings, do me a favour and get yourself ready to get onto the horn with everybody relevant up there. Department of Defence, whoever handles emergency management."

 

"Absolutely."

 

"I'll get back to you two."

 

At their current rate the group of three over the atlantic would be over Washington DC in another ten hours, based on the orbital trajectory report the orbital mechanics men had drawn up. He needed fresh ones put together. Washington. Was that their real target? Cut the head off the richest funding nation while X-Com was distracted with a couple of Chryssalids?

 

What if the whole damn thing was a feint to get enough air traffic out of X-Com bases to pin one's location down for an assault?

 

A report of a couple of Chryssalids didn't seem like much compared to losing a whole damn base.

 

Another 'new track' alert bleeped. The group of three over the atlantic had been joined by a new craft which had only now been illuminated by radar.

 

Maybe a little more than his career was at stake.

[Skonar]

18. --- New York City, Manhattan, North Side of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 12:45 EST.

 

 

 

The sun was still overhead. It hadn't melted the odd pile of snow any. The wind hadn't done it, and niether had it blown away the trash left by the news crew.

 

The whole situation felt wrong. Worse and worse with every passing moment. If only he had a radio. But it was still in the car. That's what you got for not planning things through properly.

 

Boris dropped his cigarette, grinding it out with his heel beside a dirt-smeared fragment of tape.

 

Too late for that now. It should have been quick. Drive up, pick up Peter, and in five minutes be gone. But the moron hadn't taken a radio either, and he hadn't been at the street curb.

 

He pulled the Mk. 23 from its holster, sliding out the magazine and checking it. Playing games with that bloody mortician had left him two rounds short. Boris stuffed the magazine into a pocket, and fished out one of his two spares to shove back into the handgun. He didn't bother with the silencer.

 

Next time, Boris reminded himself, just shoot the bastard in the nuts. It usually worked just as well and only cost one bullet.

 

His mouth felt a little dry. He swallowed, stepping out onto the browned grass, glancing around carefully.

 

"Peter! Where the hell you are?"

 

The sound of his yell was eaten by the trees. A figure lurched up over the crest of the hill. Shoulders hunched down, stumbling.

 

A chill ran along Boris's spine.

 

The figure started running, a stumbling gait. Judging by the lack of the limp and the way the foot was twisted, the runner didn't give a damn about the broken ankle.

 

Bright blue. A jogging suit. Not a grey business suit like Peter's, thank god.

 

Boris lifted up the Mk .23 in both hands, shutting an eye briefly as he lined up the sights.

 

"Hay-HATE! Fucking HA-"

 

Boris calmly shifted his aim from the face to the thigh, recalling what the report he'd read had to say. If the victim dies, it seemed probable that the embryo would emerge. He squeezed the trigger twice, and stepped aside.

 

The man's thigh blew out, churning the blue pantsleg into a brown and black puddle of damp.

 

Boris's eyebrow rose fractionally.

 

The man was still running, like some zombie out of a horror movie.

 

Boris started backing away, shifting his aim to the other leg and firing in a quick double-tap. The first shot missed, the second hit something judging by the way the 'Zombie' tumbled forward.

 

Forward, and into Boris, shoulder crunching into his chest and hurling him back off his feet.

 

Boris flailed, rolling untill he could get a foot under himself to stand on. Shoving himself up on his hands, Boris stumbled backward untill he could walk, getting his gun between himself and the growling man on the ground, pulling himself towards Boris on his arms, kicking at the ground with one leg, blood smearing into the grass.

 

"K-Kii-"

 

Boris continued back, hauling in a gulp of air in one sharp breath before slowing his breathing back down, pulling back sharply with every other step to avoid getting his feet grabbed by the monstrosity that used to be a man.

 

Apparently Peter hadn't been able to kill the Chryssalid. If it had only been one.

 

Boris holstered his pistol, hurridly offering the monstrosity a chirpy nod. "Good day and Goodbye, Da?"

 

"Rip your f-fface..."

 

With that, Boris turned and jogged away. On second thoughts, he sprinted.

[Skonar]

19. --- Somewhere over the Northern Atlantic Ocean, XF23C-032 in holding corridor, December 23rd 2000, 12:55 EST.

 

 

 

"I am real damn uncomfortable with this, Over."

 

The reply took a half moment, sizzling with static. "What's the problem? Over."

 

Lieutenant William Rogers, 9545-p5h-XCA, 'Buck' to his friends back at Nova Scotia, Billy to his mother, shook his head with a slow grumble, easing back on the throttle. Twenty-five kilometers up, a mere six hundred kilometers to the horizon.

 

Buck glanced left. Yup. Amongst all the cloud cover it was just the damn ocean. Too far out to even make out the west coast. Upstairs and the sky was black, despite the sun's glare. And if he pretended real hard, he could maybe make out the alien spaceships up there ready to drop a couple of gigajoules of plasma right on his head.

 

And they'd ripped out and replaced his navigation and radar system last night. For the third time in a goddamn month.

 

"Well if something goes wrong with the new systems, I'm not exactly in a great spot. When the hell are we going to stop messing with our planes? Over."

 

"When we replace them with something better. How's the new radar rig? Over."

 

"Oh it's just fine. Autopilot's on, you should be getting the telemetry. All I got to do is stare at the view and worry about something sneaking up on me. ... Over."

 

"Give it another six months, we'll strap a cyberdisc's brain into that thing and we'll let you just play poker back at base. Over."

 

"That's just dandy, so long as I get my paycheck. Out."

 

The vague sizzle of static on his radio sounded disappointed, so Buck reached over to the controls and turned the volume down.

 

He glanced at the Radar display, a fifth ping overhead, scootching into formation from the south somewhere, about middling size for a UFO as far as those things went.

 

Buck leaned his head back, squinting up at the side of the sun the UFOs should be at. Maybe if he pretended real real hard, they'd go away. Cease to exist.

 

The minutes ticked by.

 

For a little while, Buck thought he might try and catch a nap.

 

He checked the radar readout dutifully, then glanced back up, neck craned.

 

With a grimace, Buck squinted up at the black sky. If he'd been any lower, he'd never have seen it.

 

"... Oh jesus. Flight control? I have visual on at least one bogey the radar's not picking up. Over."

 

Something whispered in his ear, and Buck took a half moment before he realized how stupid he'd been. He flicked up the volume control.

 

"-onfirm that. Over."

 

"Say again, Say again, Over."

 

"Change your vector and confirm that, Black Widow Thirty-Two. You sure it's not cockpit glare? Over."

 

Gol-Dammit..." Buck twitched the joystick around, world lurching around untill he was staring up at the twinkling speck just over his shoulder. That'd put it somewhere more than twenty kilometers up, but a whole damn lot less than the couple dozen thousand kilometers the rest of the ships were supposed to be at. "Confirm. It is not damn cockpit glare. It's moving in an easterly direction. Looks fast. Over."

 

Buck corrected his course, checked the radar again, and stared up at the light, squinting against the sun's glare. Thank god for the shading on his flight helmet.

 

"Non-radar trace confirmed. We'll keep an eye on it. Resume course and continue observation. Out."

 

... Resume Course?!

 

Buck nearly bit his own tongue off. Reaching out to flick the autopilot back on, Buck leaned a finger on the 'no transmit' switch, staring up at where those shady bastards were meant to be. "You come down here, you come down here and fight. Or at the very least blow my brains out becuase I've got another four hours worth of fuel for this shit before I have to RTB, and I can't even chase you, prick."

 

Buck released the button and folded his arms, careful not to bump the stick. He wanted to hit something. Preferably the fire control. He settled for his thigh.

 

"Ow, damn"

 

"What was that, Black Widow Thirty-Two? Over."

 

Buck grumbled under his breath. "Nothing, Control. Out."

[Skonar]

20. --- Unknown Campground, personal video recorder confscated from Corporal Denise Reilly, 8834-ii6-XBP, batch 3, presumed dated at December 23rd 2000, 13:05 EST. (07:05 local by light shadows)

 

 

 

"Gimme my camera back, jackass," a female voice complains.

 

Camera image twists, lifts, sweeping over unidentified woman covered in blankets, moves towards tent flap. "Oh hell no," the first male voice replies. "Me and Ted are gonna shaving-cream Chucky-boy."

 

"Yeah, whatever. Prick."

 

"Just how you like it, woman."

 

"Gnnf."

 

Flap is pushed open. Corporal Ted Howell, 6729-5h1-XBP, seen standing outdoors in boxer shorts, with heavy winter coat, while holding can of Gilette brand shaving foam. Location is a camp ground, with barbecues set directly into the dirt. Two commercial bubble tents nearby. Area is otherwise deserted.

 

Corporal Ted Howell points past camera and mouths 'too late'.

 

Camera turns one hundred and eighty degrees. Sitting on bench facing away from camera is Sergeant Charles Benson, 5773-p7z-XBP, smoking a cigarette whilst wearing jeans and tank top.

 

First male voice enquires, "Sure is empty out here, huh?"

 

Sergeant Charles Benson replies, "Suppose so. Looked kind of nice in summer."

 

"Been here before?"

 

Sergeant Charles Benson removes cigarette from his mouth, glances back over left shoulder. "Sure."

 

X-Com issue encrypted radio handset model 3, alert chime 4, plays in background. Sergeant Charles Benson looks off camera.

 

Female voice yells, "Goddamnit"

 

Camera swivels back around, focuses on Corporal Denise Reilly wearing a blanket emerging from tent with radio handset. "We're on leave for the holiday"

 

Sergeant Charles Benson, off camera, states, "Apparently not. Let's get dressed, huh?"

 

Camera viewpoint swirls, points at ground. Second male voice complains, "Goddamnit! Can we at least have breakfast first?"

 

"No go, Mac. That's a 'right now' call, not a 'gimme five minutes to finish my cigarette'."

 

"Oh God damnit! If this is another drill I'm going to fu-"

 

Recording ends.

[Skonar]

21. --- New York City, Manhattan, East 132nd Street and Seventh Avenue, December 23rd 2000, 13:07 EST.

 

 

 

"Kitty? Where you at, Kitty?"

 

Martha poked the garbage cans in the alleyway with her stick. She didn't trust those trash cans none. Not when there might be something like a raccoon in 'em. Did you even get raccoons in Harlem? Hell if she knew.

 

The damn bang-bang-bang of a basketball drew Martha's attention. She looked up from the garbage, spotted her grandson, Baxter, walking all lopsided in pants that didn't fit up the alley from the apartment block's back door with that basketball of his.

 

"Now where you goin' in such a hurry?"

 

Baxter stopped, bounced his basketball once more, caught it. "Aw, Gramma. Me an' my boys gon' be playing Basketball."

 

"Don't you talk to me like that, Baxter Theodore Williams. Your ma and pa didn't work so hard and move to the city to raise an ig'nant nigger, you hear?"

 

"Aww. Yeah gramma."

 

"Now help me find Kitty. Kitty's gone and wandered off."

 

Baxter sagged helplessly. "My friends are waiting for me."

 

Martha flapped a hand at the boy. No use making him stay away from his friends, even if they were all hooligans. It'd just make the boy miserable. "Fine. But you be back home for lunch. And then you help me find Kitty."

 

Baxter nodded hurridly, bouncing his basketball as he hurried off with the bam-bam-bam of rubber on asphalt.

 

People had to help themselves before you could help them, Lord knew, but all a woman could do was try.

 

With an almighty clang the garbage cans further down the alley tipped over. Martha leaned on her stick so she could walk right up.

 

"Kitty? Kitty? Come out here right now. ... Kitty?"

[Skonar]

22. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, Base Command and Control Center, December 23rd 2000, 13:10 EST.

 

 

 

Part of the GEOSCAPE display lit up. A visual track had been confirmed. Shortly a second icon, as an interpretation group in Houston picked it up and began calculating its likely course and targets. Javier bit his lip. To him, it looked worryingly close to the Skyranger he'd sent off to New York almost an hour ago. He'd launched an escort as a precaution when the visual first came in, but it'd be close.

 

Could they have spotted the Skyranger at that kind of distance, from orbit? How?

 

"Sir?"

 

Two rows of desks and monitors down from the main GEOSCAPE display, one of the watch officers stood up, glancing back at him, one hand over his mic and earpiece.

 

Javier wiped at his face. He'd been on watch a little too long. "What's the news?"

 

"Our investigations team in New York just reported in from a secure line..."

 

"This had better be pertinent information, Soldier."

 

The watch officer looked uncomfortable, glancing across the room to the doors for the media monitoring offices. "Uh. The situation at that hospital, sir."

 

"What about it?"

 

"He reports seeing, uhh, Chryssalid victims, walking around like zombies, in Central park, no more than half a kilometer out from that hospital."

 

"Lets hope that's still localized enough to handle, then." Javier shook his head, glancing towards flight control. "Tell Houston to abandon the idea of getting into a holding corridor, send their Skyranger in directly." He took a sharp breath. Don't over-respond. Don't under-respond. Don't lose your job, don't lose the lives of your men, don't kill off all those civillians.

 

"See if you can get him to influence events for tighter area control." He took a swallow of already cold coffee. "And get me some highlights on this damn hospital situation."

[Skonar]

23. --- News footage, filmed at New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue and East 102nd Street, December 23rd 2000, 13:20 EST.

 

 

 

"Ellen Brightwater here live and on location," a chirpy woman's said, pretty and brunette in the foreground infront of several NYPD cruisers, "where a sticky situation has broken out at the Mount Sinai hospital, here in Manhattan."

 

She stepped aside, the camera lifting and zooming in on broken windows several stories above ground level. "After a string of violent patients admitted with drug overdoses, starting at about eleven AM this morning, it seems that something new is hitting our streets. Police have not yet spoken, however we have been monitoring the situation here for more than an hour."

 

The camera image dipped onto a black truck parked beside a hot dog stand, 'NYPD - ESU' written on the sides in white. "We believe that several patients, and possibly drug-crazed gang members, have barricaded themselves inside the hospital. We don't know if negotiations are taking place, but as you can see, the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit, our equivilent of SWAT, has just arrived."

 

The camera swiveled back onto the brunette. "We'll keep you updated from the-"

 

Two gunshots, faint, the camera image swipes up at the building, a window on the second floor. Incomprehensible yelling from figure in the window.

 

"What? Oh my. It seems the situation has just worsened, and the ESU are moving in." The camera image dropped once more, showing a line of black clad police officers assembling near the truck. The camera briefly swirled onto an approaching officer, then focussed in on the brunette reporter.

 

"I'm sorry. It seems we will have to turn off our live feeds, but we will report live as soon as possible."

 

 

 

 

 

24. --New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Police Staging Post, December 23rd 2000, 13:24 EST.

 

 

 

"I can guarantee to you, in half hour, you can get call from department of justice and defence and even goddamn president." The annoying, out of breath, Russian guy pointed back at the hospital building, past a now swarming crowd of officers and cars, many backing up the barriers and expanding the cordon around the scene. "But if you walk in there in next five minutes, I can also guarantee that today will end in worst tragedy world has ever seen."

 

Deputy Chief Brewster quirked an eyebrow. "And you're with the UN."

 

"Look. Wait ten minutes. Professionals on way, you keep cameras off, take glory, we all go home happy. Yes?"

 

Brewster shared a glance with his Aide. His Aide shook his head slowly. Brewster did the same, gestured over a uniform. "Take this knucklehead away."

 

The Russian looked incredulous as he was put into cuffs. "You are bloody Deputy Chief, you have not even heard of UN cooperation with department of justice?"

 

"Oh, sure I have. And so have the cartels. We got the warning in just an hour ago to detain anyone pulling that card."

 

"What? Warning?"

 

Brewster shook his head again, sighing. "The FBI knows what you're up to, okay?"

 

The Russian was quiet while he got led away. All of these guys were spineless.

[Skonar]

25. --- Over Conneticut and approaching Long Island Sound, SR77H-56 out of Nova Scotia, December 23rd 2000, 13:25 EST.

 

 

 

"Goddamnit. This essential personnel Evac-list is growing by the second."

 

Darren Throop glanced back, trying to track down the speaker. The intercom made a mess out of voice tones. He spotted his second, Lieutenant Masters, a little further down the growling Skyranger's internal seating, bent over a ruggedized laptop with heavy sattelite antenna. The rest of his deployment squad, NS-One, seemed edgy enough. Maybe he shouldn't have told them that there was an alien craft heading after them. But it wouldn't be fair to hold onto that information. At least the interception escort should be coming up on them soon.

 

"Who've we got?"

 

"At first it was just a couple of investigators and a dignatory at the UN Buildings. Now we've got the mayor, chief of police, Donald-bloody-Trump, Half the bloody UN staff." Masters shook his head. "Screw it. Two new ones! That's already sixty. They can't seriously expect us to pull all these people out."

 

"We only have to pull them out if we screw up. If our intel is right, and things go smoothly, we'll be home for tea."

 

Masters looked up at that, incredulous. He glanced down fast enough. Darren knew he must have looked pale, but didn't know it was that obvious. Well. Keep a stiff upper lip. He glanced down at the laptop in his own hands, linked directly into GEOSCAPE. He lay in another waypoint at an intersection. Given the elevation, the rail flyover on Park Avenue might give good line of sight to snipers once the rail system was shut down. Of course he'd need to drop them on buildings around the hospital to help containment... maybe he could get through to the local police, have them set their special service units up similarly.

 

Just how covert could this be kept? If the killing could be held within the building, Chryssalids kept inside, maybe, just maybe, things could be kept under wraps.

 

The pre-landing intel update flashed into his inbox. Darren pressed his thumb to the screen's icon, scanned the information. Chryssalid Victims confirmed in Central Park? That was new. Control was still calling in to the police and-

 

"God damn it"

 

The plane bucked left abruptly, twisting into a right turn and sharp loss of altitude.

 

Corporal Jenkins crushed his hands to his mouth, never an easy flier, Master's laptop skidded off his lap. The Lieutenant caught it by the screen, Darren wasn't quite so lucky, his own bouncing with a dull clatter across the aisle and into Sergeant Ninsei's lap.

 

Darren reached up to hold his intercom headset to his head. "Pilot! Report"

 

"Evasive Manuevers! The goddamn thing's off to one side of us! Our Black Widow Pilot can't get a clear lock"

 

The plane pulled up sharply, Darren's laptop went skidding past the trooper's boots untill it crashed into the back of the Heavy Weapons Platform strapped onto the Skyranger's boarding ramp. One of the rookies bravely reached out and caught it with his fingertips.

 

"Will we make the LZ?"

 

"I do not want to keep this bird on the ground any longer than neccesary. I'll try for Madison avenue but- Shit! Goddamnit"

 

Light flared around the doorway leading to the crew cockpit. The Skyranger had no windows other than the cockpit glass. For a moment Darren thought the pilots had been hit, but if so, the entire front end of the airframe would be missing.

 

"Pilot! What the hell just happened?"

 

"Fuck, my eyes! Close miss. Jimmy's got the stick, he had his blast shield down. Fuck. This landing's going to be hot, sir."

 

Darren switched to the squadwide channel. He heard conversations in progress, most foul, and keyed down the 'silence' tone alarm. "We're under attack, and may have to land early. Intercoms off, helmets on, make ready for a hot drop. And pass up that bloody laptop."

[Skonar]

26. --- New York City, Manhattan, East 135th Street, Harlem YMCA, December 23rd 2000, 13:27 EST.

 

 

 

"Aw come on! We fixin' ta play ball or not?" Bax grumbled, tossing the basketball from hand to hand agitatedly.

 

"Will you jus' shuddup, man?" Monty yelled back from the group squatting around the radio.

 

Bax hurled the ball down onto the court's concrete. "Dangit! I ain't never gonna get out of the house till January. Alla momma family here for christmas." He caught the ball on the way down from its bounce, and put it down to sit on as he joined the guys.

 

Aziz just looked at him like he was crazy, saying, "Sneakin' outta the house is easy. Now shut yo' mouth and listen."

 

Bax grumbled, settling down with his chin in his hand.

 

Isiah's boom box was fuzzy-sounding, but got the radio fine. "Po-Po just busted in the hospital doors, and we hear that there been reports across the city of weird ODs, so don't switch to a new dealer, you all. Holiday madness, they call it-"

 

Sky brightened for a second. Or did he imagine it? Bax looked up, blinking. Had that been thunder? In a clear sky?

 

Something black flicked overhead.

 

Bax could literally feel the wall of sound, a thump that shoved through his body and left his ears ringing, followed by dopplering jet engines. He reflexively clapped his hands over his ears, ducking his head down - The back of his neck suddenly heated up, like with a magnifying glass focussing sunlight on your skin, and the flash of light made it past his eyelids, a bright red colour.

 

He could barely make out the voices of his pals, warily looking back up at the sky.

 

"What the fuck was that?"

 

"It's aliens! It's aliens! I told you guys! I told yo-"

 

Another something streaked overhead, collapsing into a big red bang that left behind a huge cloud of smoke.

 

Bax got up off his ball, picking it up, body shivering. "I... I gotta go home."

[Skonar]

27. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Police Staging Post, December 23rd 2000, 13:28 EST.

 

 

 

Yes. Calm, quiet. Submissive. Boris avoided direct eye contact. Such little tricks, to inspire confidence in one's capturer. So far, enough confidence for the man not to remember to frisk prisoners. Even better, he'd used one of the poor kinds of handcuff - with a chain.

 

"Don't bump your head, now. ... What the?"

 

Boris felt the officer's hand lift off the back of his head. A half-second later a thunderclap blasted his eardrums. Wincing, there was barely time to take a breath before another followed, and the car seat ahead of him flashed white with light.

 

Plasma blasts, and a plane. Fast. Maybe the expected Skyranger.

 

Boris felt the cop stumble forward against him. "Goddamnit my eyes"

 

No time like the present. Boris stepped back, letting the officer slump against the car, holding his face. Thankfully, the cop wasn't wearing sunglasses. A quick glance from side to side, and Boris confirmed that there were no observers closeby. And those who wern't holding their eyes were staring at the skies.

 

His hands were cuffed behind his back. Not a problem. Boris lunged forward, letting his forehead crack into the officer's face. As expected the man began to curl in on himself, slipping into the open car door. Boris thrust forward again, with his shoulder. Ah. Satisfying crack of the back of the officer's head against the doorframe, and it sent him tumbling through onto the back seat.

 

The officer wasn't moving. That didn't worry Boris. What worried Boris were witnesses. Flexing against the side of the car, Boris straightened himself out and risked another glance around. No running figures, open mouths, or shouts that he could make out. He risked a glance into the air.

 

A slivery shape leaving a smoking trail, gaining height rapidly. Black clouds of missile explosions dotting the sky. Boris couldn't spot any fighters, or the Skyranger. Boris glanced down, kicked the legs of the officer into the vehicle, and turned, sitting down on the edge of the back seat, on the officer. No twitches. Again, a good sign. Boris scooted back, cuffed hands feeling around. Wet patch... disgusting, but to be expected. Ah. Belt, and, key pouch. So usefully predictable.

 

Boris twisted around, glancing back at the hospital while struggling with the cuffs. The special forces type police officers were missing, now. The doors of the hospital dangling open.

 

"Shit."

 

Boris hurried with the handcuffs.

[Skonar]

28. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Mount Sinai Hospital, December 23rd 2000, 13:30 EST.

 

 

 

Inanely, the public address system was still piping through a rendition of Jinglebell Rock. Smitty hadn't been here ten seconds, and it was already pissing him off. How the drug addicts were dealing with it he didn't know.

 

Uh oh, element leader snapped his fist in one direction, gestured. Smitty followed the line, lifted his shotgun. Cover... doorway. He found it within a moment, detached himself from the element, stepping over a bloody pool. It was the stairway, beside the elevators. For some reason the door had been battered into shards, chunks of wood hanging off the hinges.

 

What, the druggies couldn't figure it out, had to use a fire axe? Smitty didn't think there was much that could get a person far gone enough to forget about buttons and door handles. Shotgun levelled at the doorway at about head height, he glanced back. The rest of his element had already gone by, but the second squad of Emergency Services Unit men were already creeping along the opposite end of the corridor.

 

Smitty blinked hard and reminded himself to concentrate. He concentrated on the doorway, fingertip on the trigger of his shotgun. Maybe the crazies would give themselves up.

 

But then again. Why'd they rip down the doorway? Smitty risked another glance around. The corridor was quiet and empty. He wished the damn element leader had left him some company. It felt vulnerable out here like this.

 

Jinglebell rock ended, cycled through to a rendition of holy night.

 

One of the neon lights in the stairwell flickered.

 

Sweat trickled down the bridge of his nose and pooled on the edge of his goggles, making his skin itch.

 

Smitty tried to relax his shoulders.

 

Radio sizzled in his ear. "First floor of this section clear. Bunch up on stairwells. Send in evac, we have about forty patients, most of them look critical, most unconcious and some combative, gathered primarily in OR three."

 

Smitty glanced back reflexively as the fire exit he'd entered through clicked open. A dozen uniform cops rushed in with paramedics, silent ambulances parked up outside.

 

Well that would be some lives saved.

 

Smitty stretched out his hand, shifted his posture. Lower back hurt. Probably in that game of football last night with Jack's kids at the housewarming party. Damn.

 

A few moments later the rattle of wheels in the corridor got Smitty glancing away from the doorway. Gurneys, being pushed by uniforms and paramedics, all thankfully silent. The Paramedics looked mystified, the cops jumpy.

 

An element of four made their way carefully along behind them, MP5s up. His team, then. His heart banged in his earswhile he waited for them to line up around the door. He settled himself in behind Jack's shoulder, almost intimately close, ready to shoot safely past his head if anything turned up.

 

Lower back still ached. Maybe after this he'd get a couple aspirin and some lunch.

 

Skin still itched.

 

His headset's earphone buzzed. "Go." He needed a new one.

 

The element spread out slightly from its tight grouping, shifting through the door. He reached up, patted Jack's shoulder, and turned around, covering their backs. Jack complied, reaching back with his left hand, ending out on his hip. Thankfully, Jack reached up and found the side of Smitty's belt. There was always the vague paranoia that your element partner would inadvertantly cop a feel. Even so, this was the best way to have Jack pull him around corners safely.

 

Slow and steady. Nothing coming up the stairs behind them.

 

Pop pop pop. Gunfire elsewhere in the building.

 

Smitty edged his heels back against the stairs before letting his weight onto them. Sure footing was important. It's why an element moved slow.

 

More gunfire. Fully automatic. Did the crazies have weapons? It sounded like MP5s, but there wasn't a situation he could think of that'd drive a police officer to just open up like that.

 

Jack released his belt. Smitty turned around. Everybody was looking straight up, they hadn't even reached the second floor landing yet.

 

Smitty glanced up too. Clinging to the bannister railings two turns of the stairway up was a black... thing. Spindly, rounded. Like a halloween model. But halloween models didn't twitch, weird spines twirling around like antennae.

 

Smitty leaned to one side. There was another a couple of floors up. A cluster of them further along. Something red blotted out his goggles. Gently, Smitty stepped back and reached up to wipe it away. Stringy goo, with blood mixed in.

 

The second floor door banged open. Twitchy, George let the figure coming through have it. The woman, a patient, fell backwards. Her head was gone, but her body was twitching. Which was impossible.

 

The railing beside him rang out with impact, metal squealing. Smitty glanecd back. Crouched and balancing there was something that looked for all the world like a demon, grinning teeth and horns rising up out of its shoulders.

 

Smitty now knew why there'd been so much gunfire.

[Skonar]

29. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, Outside Mount Sinai Hospital, Air Ambulance Helicopter N-2278J, December 23rd 2000, 13:32 EST.

 

 

 

Clem grit his teeth, leaning halfway out the back of the big old Sikorsky, grabbing onto the near edge of another stretcher, clothes flapping wildly in the rotor wash.

 

"This one looks critical! Might be some kind of biowarfare agent released inside"

 

Biowarfare? Shit. Clem leaned back, trying not to inhale, dragging the patient onboard even as another was pushed in through the rear doors. He struggled back past the stretchers, helping with the third. He yelled, "This the last of them?"

 

"Last of the worst" The paramedics yelled back, buttoning up the sikorski's doors.

 

Clem threw a thumbs up, glancing back and yelling into the intercom mic, "Take her up! Where's waiting for us?"

 

The chopper lurched under him, before smoothly lifting into the air.

 

"Greenpoint! Take a look out back! There is something seriously wrong going on."

 

He really should have been checking on the patients, but something in Frank's tone of voice made him lean up against the windows while the chopper rose.

 

Black smears of smoke, now, and there'd been that flash of light. What was it now? Some kid with fireworks? Or some maniac trying to shoot down helicopters? There were worse things to worry about right now.

 

Clem made his way from one patient to the next. They all looked jaundiced, all of them comatose and completely out of it. He had to wonder if maybe they hadn't died already, but their slow, shivering breaths told another story.

 

What in the hell? One of them... Jesus. Swallowed his tongue or what? Clem shivered involuntaraily, reaching for a scalpel and Tracheotomy tube. The guy's jaw was clenched a little too tightly for him to be sure, but you didn't gurgle like that with a clear airway.

 

Clem leaned over the patient's body, stabillizing himself for the cut. low on the neck. Bypass the guy's mouth and tongue and all that mess, intubate directly. It was sloppy, but it was fast, and he had two other patients to attend to.

 

The scalpel sank through the guy's flesh easily. Too easily. No. It wasn't the guy's tongue that was blocking his airway. It was a black sack of leathery material, expanding out of the cut like a balloon, fluid pumping into it in short bursts.

 

Whatever it was, it was keeping the guy from breathing. Clem grabbed onto the sack of fluid, pulling at it even as it kept stiffening. The whole mess was slick with blood, but clem got one finger in behind it, pried... an end popped free, length bending outward limply. Sharply pointed.

 

Clem grabbed and tugged. What in the hell had this guy done? Inhaled a garbage bag? Clem reached forward with the scalpel and cut at it, trying to deflate the rapidly swelling thing...

 

 

 

Frank involuntarily twisted around in his seat. What the hell had that scream been? It was worse than the goddamn goose squealing noise from that dinosaur monster flick. "Clem? What the hell's happening back there?"

 

The dull thud against the back of his seat did get him looking over a shoulder. Clem, face covered in blood. The other man sagged. And behind him, a misshapen little monster, moving like a sack half-full of mollasses. It made the squealing noise again, and its sagging 'skin' tightened in around itself.

 

"What the-"

 

He barely had time to wonder how it'd gotten onto his helicopter, before it'd nimbly hopped forward and pecked at his cheek, between helmet and jaw, and Frank felt something crash through his flesh and into his mouth with a godawful stinging pain, his teeth chipping with a terrible metal-tasting fluid filling his mouth. He screamed, let go of the controls, and tried to push the little beast off him.

 

The helicopter swayed, and the buildings of New York filled the cockpit windows.

 

 

 

30. --- Making hot landing, New York City, Manhattan, South End of Central Park, Park Drive North intersection with Terrace Drive, SR77H-56 out of Nova Scotia, December 23rd 2000, 13:34 EST.

 

 

 

"Disembark, Disembark"

 

Almost as soon as the rear ramp began to tilt down, an ungodly rush of hot swirling air entered the troop compartment. Darren ripped off his seating belt and stood, grabbing the railing in the roof. Trees could be seen through the now gaping open back end of the Skyranger, wobbling gently side to side like drunken men.

 

One of the privates at the end of the craft smoothly kicked off the latches holding down the Heavy Weapons Platform, or Heavy Whip, a large ATV sized piece of machinery on treads, covered in armour. The latches off, the spring-loaded pallet the Whip was sitting on rammed forward, and the vehicle dropped out of view.

 

Then the private at the doors moved up to the edge of the ramp, leapt off.

 

"Take care! Don't sprain your fucking ankles"

 

The Ranger lurched backward, the men who'd disembarked so far, three of them, visible for one heart-wrenching moment, ducking their heads in terror of the wavering plane. The Skyranger stabilized, and in almost no time at all, Darren found himself leaping off the slowly drifting Skyranger, a dozen meters behind the Whip, last off the ramp.

 

He fell the five feet or so, landing with a heavy thud, hot air blasting the road surface all around, grass kicking up nearby. Darren ducked down, shoulders hunched up, and yelled into his tactical mic, "NS-One Disembarked! Get the hell out of here"

 

The ranger lifted almost immediately, the brutal thruster wash easing up as the bulky craft lifted and angled forward. Darren glanced to the sides, his men had already turned to cover all sides, two of them already taking cover beisde a park bench. None had their weapons raised. For a moment, Darren boiled with anger. The point of highest vulnerability was directly after landing. Then he realized why - A dozen cyclists further up the road had stopped and were openly staring, a couple of pedestrians were holding their screaming children close.

 

No witnesses? Not in New York.

 

Darren straightened slowly. "Ninsei! Get that bloody Whip running"

 

Lowering his rifle, he leaned into his tactical mic, eyes darting around. A crowd was starting to form. Bugger. "This is NS-One. We have been forced to abort two landing attempts nearby Sinai Medical Center due to enemy aircraft interference, have made landing in Manhattan, proceeding with all speed."

 

Ninsei kicked at the lever on the Whip's side, engine growling and spluttering.

 

The response was prompt. "This is NS-Origin. Confirm. Continue."

 

Well. That was that.

 

"Whip's up and running," Ninsei replied, a thin trail of exhaust pouring out of the vehicle's revving engine. Ninsei held up a control unit. "Roads are a little crowded, though."

 

Darren glanced around at the civillians, staring with wonder and more than a little fear. "Get the fuck out of here! Now! Manhattan is no longer safe"

 

They didn't seem to get the message. Darren shouldered his G3 and fired a burst of gunfire into the asphalt a few feet away. That gave them the message. The crowds parted, civillians pulling aside with more fear than wonder, now.

 

"Road's clear," Jenkins chipped in.

 

One of the squad members pointed up at the air. "Bird in trouble."

 

Darren glanced up at the horizon. A helicopter flitting around, moving rightward across the sky. It dipped abruptly, twisting in the air. Black smoke was rising by the time the sound of the crash rumbled faintly over them.

 

"Whoops."

 

"What the fuck was that about?"

 

"We'll let the locals decide. We have other business. Ninsei, take three and get the bloody Whip into-"

 

He was rudely interrupted, a vague flash of light on the horizon, preceding the not-quite thunder sound of plasma fire. Darren barely glanced up.

 

"Start moving north, get the Whip into position outside the hospital," he continued, pointing out of the park and into the streets of Manhattan. Almost before he'd finished pointing, Ninsei and the other three members of fire team three started moving, the Whip trundling along after them at a fat man's running pace, treads grinding, following the controller Ninsei carried. "Tell me what you find, don't engage anybody unless it's bloody obvious they've got one in 'em."

 

"On it."

 

"If you have the opportunity to steal someone's hummer, go ahead," Darren yelled after them. He turned to the remaining seven men of his team. "Gentlemen, we have about four square kilometers of parkland to clear with confirmed victim sightings. Masters, take two and sweep north from here. If there are civvies around here, chances are nothing's gone further south than this."

 

The Lieutenant nodded rapidly, moving forward at a jog, moving off into the parkland, moving paralell to the road. "Keep an eye on the trees," he yelled, "I've seen Chryssies climb before"

 

With a pair of hand movements, Darren set his squad in motion, moving west, to circle around the other end of one of the lakes in the middle of the park. Hopefully the local police could be trusted to keep the situation in the hospital bottled up, and with some luck, the sweep of the park would clear out whatever was outside. Either way, reinforcements would arrive in an hour.

 

Before following he traded the mag in his rifle for a fresh one, glancing down briefly at the chipped asphalt he'd left. Ah well. New York could always use a new pothole.

 

 

 

 

31. --- New York City, Manhattan, Madison Avenue and East 102nd Street, December 23rd 2000, 13:35 EST.

 

 

 

Boris tossed away the paper napkin he'd been wiping his hand with, and hurridly made his way toward the crowds surrounding the area. The hospital building behind him was quiet now. That probably meant everyone who was inside was dead or one of the 'zombies', as Boris now thought of them.

 

He checked his wristwatch hurridly. Presuming the idea he and Peter had about the timeline of infection was about right, the Chryssalids that were already hatched inside there would be readying to enter the adult phase, and the zombies would be about ready to hatch. Boris paused, glancing up at the crowd just ahead. The crush of people around the hospital was only growing. Gunfire attracts crowds in this country too?

 

Boris shook his head with a sigh. Well. Even if he was an investigator now, he was still X-Com. He spun on his heel and made his way towards the large ESU truck. The men making the fatal mistake of putting patients, ha, victims into ambulances, was not something Boris could stop without shooting them all. Which would draw the ire of the few policemen there, and that would hardly do. The Chryssalids would spread anyway. Too many ambulances had already left, that damn helicopter had crashed, no. This situation was broadly irrecoverable. But at least the civillians could be given a chance. Da? Da.

 

Boris came up to the side of the ESU van, glancing up. There were antennae on the van's roof, and more importantly a loudspeaker. Hunching against the van, Boris drew his pistol and began fitting its silencer, shielding the illicit action with his body.

 

Another glance around, and he shifted the gun to his left hand, edging around the vehicle. Good. The uniformed officers were still away, helping with the patients, a few warily making their way into the hospital.

 

Boris passed the Mk. 23 from hand to hand, lifted the latch on the van's rear door, found it unlocked, pulled it open with his left hand and leaned in, extending his arm to the fullest.

 

Three short puffs, and the two men at the far end of the van slumped out of their seats in front of monitoring consoles.

 

Stepping inside deftly, ducking his head, Boris pulled the doors shut behind himself and engaged the lock.

 

Ahh. There was power in identity cards that said you were of the FBI. But there was more power in bullets. Boris headed forward, looking for the loudspeaker console.

 

Now then The voice. "There has been che-" Boris paused, clearing his throat, before repeating himself with a far more American drawl. "There has been a release of..."

 

Yes. That'd do.

[Skonar]

32. --- New York City, Manhattan, 5th Avenue, December 23rd 2000, 13:42 EST.

 

 

 

Private Frank Cleaver, 6578-odk-XCM, glanced back over his shoulder, feet pounding the paving with every step. Getting past that art museum had been a pain in the ass, but now they were picking up a gaggle of interested parties trying to keep up.

 

"Aw crap. Sarge! Rubberneckers"

 

Sergeant Ninsei, head and shoulders shorter than Frank, turned, walking backwards as he surveyed the situation, Heavy Whip trundling along behind him. "Ignore 'em. They'll go away," he concluded once the rest of the squad had already sped past, running to catch up.

 

"Who are you guys?" A mystified bystander enquired.

 

Who in the hell stands there and asks who a bunch of guys with guns are? Frank kept his trap shut. Say something, anything, and chances are you'd get called on breach of secrecy charges before you could blink.

 

Marty flipped off the guy as he ran past. Frank shook his head in bewilderment and concentrated on breathing.

 

At least the Whip was carrying the heavy expendibles.

 

Bueller slowed to get around a pedestriant walking the other way. Then there was another. Pretty soon Sarge took the Whip out onto the side of the road. Not much traffic, what little there was swerved around him. Pretty soon, Frank bailed off the pavement too, looking up as he ran. Pedestrians were moving away from something up ahead at speed. The hospital? Of course the goddamn hospital!

 

Well, if it was the bugs, they'd be running and screaming. Had to be something else.

 

Frank concentrated on breathing for awhile. At least New York was at a low elevation. He'd been up in the rockies last week. Breathing had been a real bitch up there the first twenty minutes.

 

Small mercies.

 

Then he heard it. Loudspeaker system. "-been released inside the hospital. Please move away in an orderly fashion. A chemical agent has been released-"

 

He slowed to a trot, falling behind Marty and Bueller. Glancing around, the stream of Civillians walking away was thick. A look shot over his shoulder confirmed the Sarge's theory. The rubberneckers had fucked off. The repeating loudspeaker message explained why people were clearing out.

 

"You smell anything?"

 

"I smell bullshit, if that's what you mean."

 

Sergeant Ninsei and the whip breezed past, Frank turned and started running hard to catch up. Ahead were wooden police barriers, loosely across the street. There was a seriously worried uniform standing there, nobody else.

 

Ninsei slowed. "Squaddie"

 

That was polite shorthand for Corporal. X-Com used its own ranking system, you could come in a General and have to work up from private. Back in the Australian 1st Commando Regiment, Frank'd been a Corporal. Now he was a private, or a 'Rookie', mainly because he hadn't actually been tested in battle against the bugs yet. Something told him that'd change soon.

 

Bueller slowed, turning around. Ninsei tossed him the Whip's control box, and Bueller dropped his rifle to hang in its sling to catch it.

 

"Take the Whip and Cleaver," Ninsei ordered, lifting one pointed finger and dragging it around in a quick horizontal circle. "See what's what around the right side while I deal with these cops."

 

A nod, and Bueller turned, chucking the control box at Frank in turn. "I'll take point. You handle the Whip."

 

Frank awkwardly caught the control box, even as the Whip kept chugging and turning towards him. He checked that the 'follow' command had been engaged, and stuck the control box into one of his empty belt pouches before jogging past the Whip and after Bueller.

 

As he went past he could hear a snatch of the conversation between Sergeant Ninsei and the cop. Something about a missing ESU unit. Whatever ESU was.

 

There were a lot of buildings on this block, all of them neatly spaced out with long alleys between them. Damn. A quick swep up, the windows. Damn, but there were a lot of windows. A couple dozen stories, some of the higher ones were broken out. Had the Ranger been flying that low on its approach runs?

 

Frank kept trailling after Bueller, dutifully pointing his rifle down alleyways as they passed them, glancing abck and forth, even while the recorded message droned on and on.

 

The building complex beside the hospital had a courtyard, wide open and sunny, utterly deserted. An entrance further along to an underground parking lot, the doors would have to be sealed when there was time, lest any bugs get out from there. Or in.

 

The area right around the hospital was almost entirely deserted, but they'd spotted errant patrolmen lurking on the far side of crowd control barriers crossing streets.

 

The source of the repeating announcement was plain when found, a heavy cop van marked with 'NYPD' and 'ESU' on the sides. It just kept on spewing the same message, over and over.

 

"Think there's anyone in there?"

 

Frank shrugged, checking over his shoulder. The Whip was still following, taking a wide curve around a trash can.

 

Bueller strolled up, rapping on the rear door. No answer. It swung open easily when he tried the handle. "Nasty."

 

Frank edged up, risking a glance inside. "I guess whoever set the message running didn't have permission."

 

"Probably in our favour, but keeping the cops on hand would've been useful."

 

"We going to shut it off?"

 

"Hell no," Bueller replied, slamming the doors shut on the dead bodies. "You want a bunch of civvies wandering into Chryssalids?"

 

Frank glanced back up at the hospital building. Losing a communications van would attract attention, when there were forces active in the field.

 

Unless of course those forces were all eliminated.

 

"This whole op's in the shit-house from the bloody start."

 

"You said it, Amigo."

 

Just then, they heard the wail of a siren. Edging around the crowd control barriers in the road, an ambulance was pulling towards the hospital.

 

"What in the hell is this about?" Bueller jogged forward, waving. "Hey, what the hell are you doing here? Yo"

[Skonar]

33. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, Base Command and Control Center, December 23rd 2000, 14:00 EST.

 

 

Javier glanced up at the main GEOSCAPE display. The yellow diamonds of the skyrangers hardly seemed to be moving.

 

He dipped his eyes then, onto one of his telemetry displays. NS-One-One was in Central Park. Fireteam one there, the second marked down a hundred meters south east, still in the park, and the third further north, outside the building that had been marked by the intelligence types as Mount Sinai.

 

Skyranger SR77H-56 was half way back from dropping off NS-One and would hopefully be relaunched soon after.

 

They were still busily filling in missing information with maps and available records, and given the size of the city if every intelligence department switched to updating GEOSCAPE's databanks, it'd still take days.

 

In all likelyhood updating datasets would be getting farmed out to some civillian group any time now, and they'd realize exactly why they'd be getting updated.

 

Javier sighed. "So what you're telling me, Captain, is that this situation is a little out of hand."

 

"That's right, sir. It seems that the local medical services 'evacuated' patients from the hospital, as potential civillian casualties, shortly before the local paramilitary response, the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit, moved upstairs, while we were dodging plasma. Sounds like it was a bloody slaughterhouse, sir. Given the timeframe the local police have given us, we can expect a fresh batch of Chryssalids to be hatching in there right now. We've encountered a number of Chryssalid Victims in the park, sir. They really do look like bloody zombies. There's a mess of Chryssies clinging to the trees on the north side, hard to make out unless you're almost ontop of them.

 

"The good news is that they're not terribly active at the moment unless provoked. The bad news is that sundown is in two and a half hours, and according to the locals there've been odd reports as far north as the Harlem river.

 

"Additionally, infantry team Houston-Two are making landing within the hour. Sir, I understand that we're stretched for Skyrangers, but I need local air transport. If Chryssalids pop up in the Bronx or Brooklyn, we are curently unable to move with any great speed. Additionally, we don't have enough men to cover the area at hand."

 

Javier chewed at his lip.

 

His career was effectively over anyway. He could manage the rest of this as perfectly as possible, hold everything steady, not lose another civillian, and it'd still be over. Goddamn. He'd screwed this up. If the ranger had been allowed to land without alien interference, if he'd managed to scramble earlier, if there'd been more warning, if he'd still had two skyrangers on hand.

 

So very many ifs.

 

"I'll see if I can keep it in the area for your usage, Captain, but I doubt it. Hopefully we'll be able to get you support from the locals and some reinforcements as soon as possible, but for now clear out the park and hospital. It looks like you're our field command. Keep your eyes on the ball."

 

"Yes Sir."

[Skonar]

34. --- New York City, Manhattan, Middle of Central Park, December 23rd 2000, 14:15 EST.

 

 

 

"Boss. Somebody dumped a laser can."

 

Darren glanced up disbelievingly from his laptop and reaching for the pocket he had his binoculars in. "Where?"

 

Corporal Jon Money, ('always on the money,') had his rifle pointed across the reservoir, peering through the scope. "Left side of that building up on the edge, there. Past the trees, on the side of the road."

 

Darren pressed the binoculars to his eyes and squinted, rolling the focussing wheels. He focussed in on the building, shifted somewhat left. A bright red blotch on the ground, surrounded by a ring of snow. "How can you tell?"

 

Jon reached up to pat his rifle scope. It was Infra-Red, high definition, borrowed off the Russians. "Damn thing is too white to figure out the temperature, and it's heated up the ground a whole bunch."

 

Darren looked again. The ring of snow around the object must have been from the rest of it melting. The spot was near a bundle of bushes, giving good visual cover for anyone who might have reloaded. On top of that, there was a smear of blood on the snow a few feet away. Probably cooled off, if Jon hadn't seen it.

 

"I don't know if it's a gas canister, but it's certainly not a bloody thermos. Probably not a canister, either. We're not due for our laser shipment untill February."

 

"Maybe one of the Houston boys got lost?"

 

"They've not landed yet. Besides, I don't think they've got lasers yet either."

 

Jon shrugged, eye glued to the scope's eyepiece.

 

Darren lifted his binoculars again, sweeping back and forth on the coastlines, trying to spot the other two corporals in his fire team, scouting ahead . Not much sign of them. That meant they were keeping their heads down, which was good. He shoved his binoculars back into their pocket, and glanced at the laptop. The cover had a vague bootprint, from its adventures in the Skyranger. Darren would have thought that the Sattelite antennae on the side might've snapped off, but it wasn't even loose.

 

According to the GEOSCAPE display the other two in his fireteam, Guerrera and Jenkins, were halfway around the reservoir. Fireteam two had already made it up to where 97th street crossed Central Park. Almost ontop of the hospital. And according to a terse radio message earlier, they'd already engaged Chryssalid Zombies. Gunfire was a little difficult to make out against the general city sounds, unfortunately.

 

Abruptly Jon fired off a round, followed it by second.

 

Darren tried not to wince, reaching up to wriggle a finger in his uncovered ear. His radio earpiece had helped the other, a bit.

 

"On the money," Jon murmured.

 

"Chryssalid?"

 

"Their joints show up bright against the tree trunks. Takes a bit of searching for, though."

 

Darren nodded vaguely.

 

The Houston team, on the other hand, were still on their way down. Darren reached down to his radio set and flipped over to the houston team's squad leader channel.

 

"Houston-Two This is NS-One. What's your status?"

 

The reply took a moment in coming, the speaker using the nasal drawl of a Texas native. "This is Haych-Two. We should be another twenty minutes out."

 

"Do me a favour, Jake. Try to land somewhere on the north side of Manhattan, and leave men at intersections to keep watch for the bugs moving. We don't have the manpower to track them down, and my main concern is these things getting over the rivers."

 

"You got it, buddy. We'll keep the north end of the line shut."

 

"Fantastic. Out."

 

"Out."

 

Darren flicked back to his own squad frequency, brief conversation done with. On the GEOSCAPE display fireteam two hadn't moved much.

 

"Masters? What's the situation?"

 

He rubbed at his eyes, hand resting atop the laptop screen, ready to shut it down.

 

Darren glanced down and checked that he was transmitting to his full team. "Masters? NS-One-Two, Respond."

 

"This is One-Three. We heard gunfire, but it cut off a little while ago. Want us to check on them?"

 

Darren stared a moment longer at the four markings that denoted Fireteam two. They wern't moving. He hesitated.

 

"Send a half team, but do not engage, keep your distance, and stay far away from any cover that could hold Chryssalids."

 

"In short, stay alive?"

 

"Exactly."

 

"Will do."

 

Darren flipped shut the laptop, reaching around to stuff it back into its pocket over his chest. He swallowed briefly, and pulled his rifle around from where he'd slung it over his back. "Fuck," he breathed.

 

Jon glanced back from his rifle with an eyebrow quirked. "I take it we're going to get on the move."

 

"Damn Straight."