by Rick Barba
“They’re dead meat,” said Lopez.
Gilmore nodded. “It’s beautiful, man.”
Marin squinted in disbelief at the video. “They’re terrified,” he said.
“Wow,” said Lopez, twirling her cap backward and leaning closer. “Yeah, you’re right.” She reached out and tapped the Stop button. “Look at those guys by the wall. Totally freaked out.”
“Incredible,” said Marin. “Those are highly trained, psi-directed ADVENT soldiers. Yet look how rattled they are. Even the Sectoids are reacting erratically.” He reached past Lopez to the console and dragged the video’s scroll box back and forth, replaying the opening segments. “Look at that! It has all the signs of a powerful psi panic attack.”
“Who could do that?” asked Lopez.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Marin.
“Are the aliens attacking their own units?” asked Gilmore. “I mean, nobody else has that kind of psionic punch.”
“Let’s watch again in overlay,” said Lopez.
She dragged the scroll box back to the opening frame. This time she activated the psionic detection filter and let the clip play again.
Gilmore pointed. “Purple glow to that incoming fire.”
“Psionic enhanced, all of it,” said Marin. “Very advanced. Certainly beyond the weaponry we’ve been able to produce.”
They watched the last few seconds of the grim video. The remaining ADVENT Troopers were cut down as a swirling purple storm of psionic energy engulfed the Sectoids, shattering their defensive sphere. Then a final volley of weapons fire tore them to slimy pieces.
Stunned, Marin said, “That vortex was a Rift attack.”
Lopez looked up at him. “Only Elders can conjure those,” she said.
Marin nodded. “This is just . . . unbelievable.” He squinted, remembering. “We had just one GEIST volunteer, our most advanced candidate, who could throw a Rift. Twenty years ago.”
Gilmore suddenly pointed at the screen. “There!” he cried. “Look!”
Several cloaked figures, murky and indistinct, drifted through the trees on the opposite ridge. They looked like ghosts.
And then the second video ended.
“Gilmore,” said Marin. “Download the next segment.”
Gilmore looked sheepish. “Uh, there is no next segment,” he said.
“Why?”
Gilmore and Lopez exchanged a glance.
“Well, Will,” said Gilmore. “Per instructions, the sensor minicam shuts down when it stops getting discrete psionic pulse readings.”
Marin pinched the spot between his eyes. “And what idiot gave you such idiotic instructions?” he asked.
“That came right from the top,” answered Gilmore.
Marin took a deep breath.
“Don’t ever listen to me again,” he said. “Am I clear on that?”
“Clear as vodka, boss.”
Marin stared up at the video window. They had just witnessed something extraordinarily significant. This could be a game changer. Somebody out there had harnessed psionic power and turned it with lethal fury on the alien overlords of the planet. Were they human? Rebel aliens?
Who were these guys?
Lopez reached out and squeezed Marin’s arm. She said, “Just so you know, you’re the best idiot I’ve ever worked for.” She smiled. “One of the best, anyway. Probably in the top ten or twenty, definitely.”
“Thanks.”
Amused, Gilmore slid the chair he’d been standing on up to the control console. Then he sat in it and looked up expectantly at Marin.
“Same,” he said.
Marin licked his lips. It was something he did unconsciously whenever he had a tremendous amount of work looming ahead of him.
He said, “Start analyzing this data.”
Gilmore saluted. Lopez was already tapping away.
Marin walked straight across the lab to Dr. Tygan.
“Richard,” he said. “I have something you need to see right away.”
Tygan brightened. “Is it good news?”
“Not sure,” said Marin. “Central needs to see it too. Can I call him down?”
Tygan said, “He’s out in the field today. Took one of the Skyrangers, so it must be important.”
“In the field? Doing what?”
Tygan smiled. “I believe he’s reaching out to the locals.”
BACK IN NEW SAMARA, Alexis Petrov sat, eyes closed, on her bedroll. Cold winds wailed down Apache Peak through the naked aspens outside her tent. She hadn’t moved in two hours. Time slowed like a slurry flow.
There were quiet voices outside.
“Volk is ready.”
“Now?”
“Yes. He’s in council with the visitor, but he wants her to join them.”
For hours, Petrov’s mind had flipped between two channels. In one, she saw the Indian Peaks etched sharply against blue sky above the settlement. This was the inner place where she’d been instructed to go. Earlier, the camp psychologist, Veng—Reapers jokingly called him “Medicine Man”—had led her through a series of directed visualizations. He called it CBT trauma management.
The other channel, of course, was the vivid, bloody hunting camp under Devil’s Thumb.
Whenever her inner eye went there, her instructions were to turn around and walk until she could see white mountains and blue sky again.
“What if I want to stay and fight?” she’d asked.
“You will someday,” Veng had replied. “But for now, trust me, you need to walk away.”
Petrov had lost squad mates in combat before, beloved ones. This was war. Loss was inevitable. But before, it was one here or two there. Months apart, sometimes even years. Nothing like this—not for her and not for the Reapers. So many dead in one encounter. The camp was in shock.
Nobody blamed her. Here at New Samara, everyone offered comfort. But they needed a narrative, clearly. Who did this? Twenty hunters lost to a single, shadowy entity? Petrov saw CK, Jean Natter, and everybody else on that hunt. Reapers she’d known for years and considered family. They’d fought together, saved each other. Huddled countless hours around campfires. Knew each other’s stories.
One by one, they stopped by Petrov’s tent, the living and the dead.
They offered comfort but sought explanation.
So far, she’d turned them all away. But now it was time to face Volk.
* * *
Konstantin Volikov—known to all Reapers simply as “Volk”—was a burly, bearded, intimidating man. His predecessors were resilient Russian refugees from Samara who’d resettled to Alaska in the previous century, founding a remote village north of Talkeetna that they named East Volga. The hunting and fishing was spectacular, and the town became a base camp for expeditions to the twenty thousand-foot summit of nearby Denali, the most prominent peak in North America.
But when the first alien troops probed the Alaska Range in 2014, Volk—then just twenty-one—responded by organizing a zealous resistance effort. East Volga’s remote location probably kept him alive during his reckless early days as a rebel leader. The aliens’ general lack of interest in snowy, mountainous regions—areas that ADVENT now labeled the Wild Lands—had given Volk’s fledgling cell the breathing room it needed to study the enemy, develop effective tactics, and flourish.
Volk’s clan became known as the Reapers. Over the next decade, high-country resistance cells along the length of North America’s spine united under his leadership. Eventually, he moved the Reaper base of operations to its current location: New Samara in Colorado.
A bazaar-like tent city, New Samara was easily the largest Reaper encampment, home to nearly 350 warriors and their families. Volk named it in memory of his family’s city of origin in Russia. Before the alien invasion, old Samara had been a bustling waterfront capital on the banks of the Volga River, a major economic and cultural center with a population of 1.1 million citizens.
Now it was a desperate, burned-out slum cowering on
a polluted waterway.
* * *
Petrov’s assigned chaperone for all three days since the Devil’s Thumb incident was a senior-level Reaper field commander named Kate Starling. She wasn’t much older than Petrov, but she had a comforting, motherly manner. It was remarkable, given her well-known ferocity in combat.
Starling slid her hand gently around Petrov’s arm as they strolled across camp to Volk’s command tent.
“He’s a badass but not a monster,” she said.
“Volk?” said Petrov, with a slight smile. “I’ve made reports to him before.”
Starling squinted one eye. “Not like this one,” she said.
“True.”
“I’ve fought with Volk for thirteen years,” said Starling. “And by that I mean”—she pointed straight ahead—“we fought side by side.” Then she pointed at Petrov. “And we fought face to face.” She grinned. “I’d want nobody else at my side in battle. And I’d want anybody else in my face in a hot argument. Even a Chryssalid.”
Petrov nodded. “I’m nervous,” she admitted.
“Just tell it to him straight,” said Starling. “Volk hates arrogance and modesty equally.”
Petrov nodded again. “I’m good,” she said.
“Good.”
Volk’s command post was a big twelve-by-twenty-foot wall tent with an internal carbon fiber frame and a stovepipe jacked through the roof. Volk’s personal bodyguard, a veteran sniper named Bobby Chung, sat on a stool under the entrance awning. He held up a hand.
“Hey, Kate,” he said. He nodded at Petrov.
They waited as Chung ducked inside. After a second, he opened the flap for them.
“Have a seat,” said Chung, pointing at a bench.
Volk sat at a table staring at the screen of an open laptop. Next to him sat a weathered, dark-looking man in his fifties. He wore a commando sweater and had a deep vertical scar running down his right cheek.
“Yes, John, we’ve seen them,” Volk was saying as they examined the blue-lit screen. “Not friendly encounters, mind you. But we haven’t exchanged gunfire, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The man, John, nodded. “This is the best close-up shot we got,” he said. “Clearly, they’re not human. Or not entirely human, anyway.”
Volk frowned. “But you say they kill aliens?”
“Boy, do they,” said the man with a dark smile.
“Well,” said Volk. He pulled at his thick beard with thumb and forefinger. “Normally I’d say the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He pointed at the screen. “But these guys are too ugly to be anyone’s friend.”
John laughed. “I think that’s racist, buddy.”
“Right.” Volk nodded. “So what else do we know?”
John tapped at the screen. “Our intel says they speak our language, and it seems they call themselves . . .”
“Skirmishers,” interrupted Kate from the bench.
Both men looked up at the women.
“Hello, Kate,” said Volk with a grin. “Did you come to correct us?”
“Only when necessary,” she replied.
“John, this is my tactical field commander, Kate Starling,” said Volk. “She’s the smartest fighter in this camp. In any camp, actually.”
“Hello,” said John.
Starling nodded curtly. “I know who you are,” she replied. Her tone wasn’t entirely congenial. Curious at this, Petrov glanced over at Kate’s impassive face.
Volk sat back in his chair. “Sorry, John, my people still have bad feelings based on misconceptions,” he said. “They don’t know you like I do.”
The man nodded. “It was a time of betrayal,” he said. He spoke now with careful precision. “I understand the feelings. A lot of us took a shiv in the back from people we trusted. It’s hard to get past that.”
Petrov sensed an intensity behind this exchange that she did not understand. After a brief uncomfortable silence, Starling took a deep breath. “Look,” she said. “If Volk vouches for you . . . that’s good enough.”
When the visitor smiled, his scar twitched. “Can I ask what you know about these Skirmishers?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen one,” said Starling. “Other than sending down occasional sentries, they keep to the high passes. We’ve heard some crazy stories in Leadville and other high-country settlements. Almost like Bigfoot sightings. Mostly just tavern talk, I figure.”
Volk leaned back forward. “Kate, get your people to make a full report on anything they’ve seen or heard on Skirmishers.”
“Alright,” said Starling.
Volk looked at Petrov. “Ah, yes,” he said. “John, let me introduce you to one of my team leaders, the one I told you about. Alexis Petrov, this is John Bradford, central officer in charge of operations at XCOM.”
“XCOM?” blurted Petrov.
Now Starling’s attitude made sense. Many Reaper lieutenants saw XCOM as part of the global cabal that cut a deal with the alien Elders and sold out the human race. They suspected that the newly resurrected XCOM was at best weak and at worst a haven for collaborators and spies.
But then Petrov noticed Bradford’s expression had changed.
“You’re the one?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
Petrov looked confused. “What?”
“The one who saw him,” pressed Bradford.
“Saw who?”
Bradford frowned. “The Hunter.” Confused, he looked over at Volk.
Volk stood up. “She doesn’t know about the Hunter. None of my soldiers do.” There was a catch of emotion in his voice. He stepped around the table and approached Petrov. Next to her, Kate Starling stood up too. She put a light hand on Petrov’s shoulder.
Volk leaned in close to her face.
“Tell us your story,” he said. “Then we’ll explain what you saw.”
* * *
When Petrov finished, Volk told her of two other Reaper hunting parties ambushed the previous week.
Both were farther north, deployed from camps in the Roosevelt National Forest north of Estes Park. In each patrol—three Reapers in one, four in the other—the ambush left a lone survivor. Their reports were disturbing. At Volk’s request, Bradford had provided an XCOM forensics team to help in the postmortem.
After analysis of survivor testimony, ballistic testing, autopsy, and other results, the team concluded that a single marksman firing an extremely high-powered sniper rifle was responsible for all five kills. Moreover, the shooter exhibited a seemingly impossible mobility, flanking targets with stealth and stunning speed.
Neither survivor saw the shooter.
“I’m interested in something you described,” said Volk. “After you cleared your vision, you saw a dark figure in the trees, correct?”
“Yes,” said Petrov.
“But his head was above the trees? Like a giant?”
“Not exactly,” said Petrov. “They were pygmies.”
“Pygmy trees?”
Petrov nodded. “It was a stand of pygmy pines,” she said. “Right on the creek. That’s why we pitched camp on the opposite bank.” She looked over at Bradford. “Pygmy trees tell you that bedrock is just under the surface. Hard to pitch your tents securely.”
“Noted,” said Bradford with a thin smile.
Volk was pacing. “After we . . . recovered your hunting party, we did an initial scan of the site,” he said. “It was difficult, as you can imagine.” He stopped to stare at the tent wall. “But we’ll go back and check out those trees.”
“I can tell you right now they’re exactly six feet tall,” said Petrov.
“How do you know?”
Petrov cleared her throat. “CK Munger, my best trigger man, walked into the stand when we pitched camp,” she said. “He’s six feet tall. The trees were his exact height. He made a joke about it is why I remember.” After a pause, she repeated, “He was six feet tall.”
Volk said, “We’re looking for some way to ID this shooter, other than, you know . . .
a big guy with a deep voice.”
“His head and entire chest were above the trees,” said Petrov. “I would estimate nine, ten feet tall.”
“Good god,” said Starling. She turned to Bradford. “Why did you call him the Hunter?”
Bradford reached out and closed the laptop. Then he stood up and slung it under his arm.
He said, “That’s what he calls himself.”
“You’ve talked to him?” asked Starling.
Bradford laughed. “No,” he said. “He’s left a few calling cards, so to speak.” He raised his dark eyebrows. “It’s clear that he wants his presence well-known in your community. To sow fear.”
Starling nodded. “Hence the designated survivor of each massacre.”
“Precisely.”
Outside, the sound of aircraft engine whine slowly revved up. Volk reached out and shook Bradford’s hand. “Thanks, John. I know you have to get back.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a recon team gearing up,” said Bradford. “We have reports of ADVENT heavy transports hauling construction modules over the Divide.”
“That’s not good,” said Volk.
Bradford pulled a flight headset from a utility pocket and hooked it over his ear. “No, it’s not good—for any of us. We think they’re building some sort of high-altitude facility over on the Western Slope.”
Volk’s eyes widened. “Maybe a network relay?”
“Maybe.”
“If so, let’s kill it.”
All Reapers despised the insidious flow of disinformation and fear aired daily from ADVENT’s hidden Network Tower. Volk had long ago designated the tower’s destruction as a primary strategic desire. In a daze, Petrov listened to them share thoughts on ADVENT’s global propaganda efforts to slander the Resistance.
“Any luck tracking down those rumors of your Commander?” asked Volk as he walked with Bradford to the tent entrance.
“None,” said Bradford.
“You know we’ll help if we can,” said Volk, raising his rumbling voice over the engine whine. “I hope it’s true. He was a great man.”
Bradford just nodded and ducked out of the tent.
Seconds later, Petrov heard the XCOM aircraft rise above the camp, then bank away.